Saturday, November 9, 2024

Whitaker Trail

 

We had done hike to Whitaker Trail on 9th November 20224 . It is located in Ozark National Forest, Arkansas State.

Hike Location

Name: Whitaker Trail

Distance: 80 miles from Walton Gym (approx.)

Total hiking distance: 2.7 miles

Elevation Gain: 321 ft.

Hike Team: Amita, Inderjeet, Ishaan, Hanumantha, Abhijeet, Shawn, Zhen and me.

Hiking Experience:

This was the first weekend team outing/activity. As soon as proposal was put everyone readily accepted under one condition (no early morning waking up). So we planned to start around 8 am from Walton Gym. With past experience with team, have sent message to team previous night to reach gym by 7:50 am so that can save that 10 mins late start. It worked in one way. By 8 we have all members at the gym. Amita and family left from Gym however due to my over excitement about new Range Rover took another 15 mins to boast off its features. Finally around 8:15 am we started our promotional tour, I mean hike. It started with me promoting my new car. We soon hit the highway and then Abhijeet started showcasing his Samsung foldable phone along with its AI skills in photography. Shawn very happy to learn that one more Samsung member in the team. Soon Hanumantha our reliable driver started about his car reliability (Toyota Rav4) and how it warned us that Shawn was not wearing his seatbelt who was in the rear passenger seat. Shawn was moving from his seat(not sure if he is adjusting or trying to do something else ) and car warned to put seatbelt. Zhen who was until now thinking, started speaking about his new house and how he is still buying/fixing things for the house and after careful thought he invited us to visit his house. I think enough of promotions along the way, let's move on to our journey. 

It was a rainy weather when we started from Bentonville, As we reached highway it was cloudy, the hills, trees on the dies of highway are covered with fog all along. Our reliable driver while engrossed in talking about his car missed one of the exits (not much time damage
though). We searched for nearby McDonalds for breakfast and closest to our destination was 30 miles from our current location. Both cars, I mean all of us planned to meet at McDonalds. On the way we decided to Surprise Amita for her recent Promotion and planned to buy a cake and some bananas for the hike. We stopped at Walmart Neighborhood and surprisingly saw Inderjeet coming from Walmart and located their car. We went into the store hoping they have not noticed us and went to bakery section. Hanumantha and Shawn almost took 20 mins to decided on the cake, chose every cake and finally selected the first one we saw on the shelf. It was almost like they were tasting every piece of cake while looking at each one. We left Walmart and continued our journey to McDonalds. We saw Dogs standing on the highway, seeing for the first time. We reached around 9:27 am. We ordered food, started having our breakfast. Amita started telling about their Tesla Car and its auto driving capabilities. Around 10 am we left to our destination. It was drizzling and the road full of fog almost zero visibility. Great maneuver skills by our driver.

Soon we entered the dirt road which was very slipper, muddy due to rain. It was drizzling continuously. We are about 15 mins from reaching the parking spot, Amita raised concern(which actually we all have but didn't say out) should we turn back due to bad weather and not good visibility. Due to our never give up attitude, we decided to reach the parking and then decide. As we are about to reach parking spot we saw lot of cars and overflown parking. This gave us confidence and never again thought of returning without doing the hike. We reached around 11:28 am. There were people camping at the parking lot, some were wearing raincoats and walking along the trail and others just either starting or just coming back finishing the hike. Seems like none were bothered about rain or slipper road or muddy road. We started our hike around 11:32 am. After couple of mins of searching for the entrance of the trail we were able to locate(grace of fellow hikers pointing the direction). It was a steep descent and trail is covered with tree roots, water, leaver, stones. We climbed down carefully and then the trail started getting flat. We continued on the trail waving and greeting other hikers who were returning. It was still drizzling and by now we got used to it and didn't feel its presence anymore. The trail was completely drenched and covered with leaves. But still the trail was beautiful with left over leaves with their splendid color. It was really good feeling to walk amidst such natural environment. 
As we continued our hike we crossed several streams which were for a change overflown with water. It was a great sight and enjoyment to cross the streams and continue on our trail. As most of the trail was either flat or going down we had not felt any stress and able to proceed with ease with good pace. We came across huge rock boulders to our right and there was huge valley with great fall colors. All of a sudden, Ishaan, so far who was shy to speak or make a sound, started asking how many more hours to reach the view point every few mins. While actually we were just a quarter mile away. Soon we reached one of the first view point. The view was spectacular with all the trees with various colors and most of them covered with fog.  After taking some pictures we hiked further to the main view point, which was little ascent with tree roots and sharp rocks. Around 12:30 pm. we reached the Whitaker rock point view. It was indeed one of the best views we have seen. Though most of the view is covered with fog, still it was amazing to stand on the cliff and look at the wonderful colorful valley amidst the sound of flowing stream. Shawn exhibits his photography skills with his tripod and powerful lens which were brilliantly captured by Abhijeet. We then had our photoshoot, not sure even if movie stars have so many photoshoots. Hanumantha, Zhen continued to pose until our pro photographer finally said its enough. Not to blame them but the views were really stunning and especially in that weather. We celebrated Amita's promotion in natural environment. 
We then decided to head back around 1:03 pm. All along Zhen was not ready to leave his parachute bag even during photoshoot, seems like a safety measure in case of a fall from the cliff. Ishaan whose name we didn't know until we reached to the top of the cliff, as he does not share his name and considers it security information, was the first one to start our way back. Initially the return trail was good with small descent and not much rain. Slowly as we walked further we started feeling the difficulty of the steep ascent of the trail. we steadily kept going with reduced pace. We crossed the streams again and by now it completely stopped raining. Shawn and Ishaan who were so eager to get to the parking lot, lost their way in another direction until they realized someone shouting at them to return. The last leg was really a steep ascent and it was very good stressful exercise. We reached around 1:54 pm to the parking lot. Thanks to Ishaan for sharing the Oreo biscuits and Fruit juice packets with us, much needed at the time. We decided to have lunch and made Hanumantha's trunk as our buffet table. Abhijeet made delicious Manchuria, Amita tasteful Parathas and Hanumantha prepared for the first time Tamarind Rice(thought didn't seem like someone first timer can prepare) with help of Virtual help from his wife(early in morning) and coincidentally I too brought the same. It felt great to complete the hike and have such wonderful food in natural weather with fog surrounded all over the place and no rain. We finished our lunch and started back to Walton gym around 2:30 pm. We had a good hike, nice promotions from everyone and finally reached home by 4:25 pm. All is well.

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Saturday, September 14, 2024

Yellow Rock Trail

We had done hike to Yellow Rock Trail on 13th September 2024 . It is located in Devils' Den State Park, Arkansas State.

Hike Location

Name: Yellow Rock Trail

Distance: 45 miles from Walton Gym (approx.)

Total hiking distance: 2.6 miles

Elevation Gain: 482 ft.

Hike Team: Abdul, Amita, Hanumantha, Nishant, Shawn, Zhen and me.

Hiking Experience:

We decided to reach Walton Gym around 7:45 am sharp, but didnt realize sharp means another 5 mins fro 7:45. We all met around 7:50 except Abdul who as per him is very close, upon checking found out that he is actually on J Stree and stuck in traffic and takes another 5 mins. Finally Abdul reached and we set out in Amita and Hanumantha's cars. Hanumantha, Shawn and me in one car and rest in another. we started around 8:05 am after distributing the food in both cars. As usual I started boring them with my old adventure activities while on drive. we reached the parking lot around 9:03 am, not difficult to find just little off the road and could see the sign board. Both are exceptional drivers sticking to time, lanes and able to reach smooth and safe except few off lane driving warnings. We had our breakfast Bananas, Croissants, Bread with excellent home made spread by Amita(might give a tough competition to cream cheese spread if in market). By 9:25 am we are done with breakfast , packed water bottles, oranges and some bananas each and started our hike by 9:28 am.


There was an entrance arch which has Yellow Rock Trail Name on it and passed through the entrance and followed the white diamond shaped plate trail. The weather was cloudy making it optimal for our hike. The trail is full of rocks buried in the ground and looked like steps (unordered and different shapes). The slope increased gradually and we could feel the effort. But the natural fresh air, large rock formations and pleasant atmosphere kept us going forward. There was a scary cave like formation barricade with iron rails indicating danger. We crossed it without much venturing there (as the name of the park,D evils Den, also had some impact on us). We hiked along the rock formations and could see some steep dark tunnels. Due to summer season the streams are dry and can see just huge rocks and dried leaves. We kept going forward and after reaching certain elevation we started exploring various overlook points. They are very scenic and gives a good high level overview(not high level design) of the mountain and valley filled with trees.
Around 10:30 am we reached the main crux of our journey the yellow rock overlook. It was a spectacular view from the overlook. It was a large wide rock(certainly yellow in colour). This is where we discovered a young and great photographer amongs us, that is Shawn. While we were relaxing after strenuous hike and having some oranges, bananas our photgrapher was busy arranging the camera position to capture these awesome views. Finally after all the photoshoots we started towards the next point of our hike that is CCC shelter. Throughout our hike we were so excited and anxious towards what animals, creatures might be there in the jungle especially after Amita obsessed with spider with long legs which we came across amidst our footsteps. This led to discussion of various wildlife live video streams, documentaries and topic diverted to life of Alaska bears(salmon fish and hibernation). And our young wildlife explorer Abdul(Rockstar in our group - will come to know later) started exploring the foot tracks of fellow hikers and growth of grass on the trail to see if the route was used or not.


One person who was little upset that we decided to continue the hike to CCC Shelter was Zhen as he thought we could descent back instead of hike on the steep path. We continued our hike which was steep and had lot of turns and passed through a wooden bridge, dried streams. We had a task of figuring out what is CCC and closest we could guess was Child Care Center. We finally reached the shelter by 11:15 am. It was an old great construction in 1934 and CCC is Civilian Conservation Corps, we were very close. We took some rest there. It was other entrance to Yellow Rock Trail. We started the return hike.


Now that we have seen all the overlooks, scenic beauty of nature, trees and discovered wild species(spiders) we started having small group conversations. Abdul, who came to know our photographer joined Pickle ball sessions was trying to get all the info he can to join the class then and there itself(if possible). Then we were engrossed in small team conversations Abdul and Nishant , Hanumantha and Shawn, Amita, Zhen and Me. We had visited(visualized) many countries like Australia, Japan and Vietnam through Zhen's experience. Hanumantha and Shawn explored all states specifically California and India, and Abdul and Nishant engrossed in various sports including swimming, soccer. The return hike is a steep decent on rajor sharp rocks and tree roots coming out of earth as speed brakers. Soon we all came out of team conversations , walked further. We all were walking normal but Abdul in cloudy weather wearing shades, hands in pocket, glaring shoes was walking stylishly as though going on to a stage to perform like a Rockstar. Finally reached our parking spot by 12:00 pm. We took rest, had photoshoot and visited the visitor center which was small and decent. We then drove back to Walton Gym and reached by 1:18 pm. All is well

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