Shaddox Hollow Trail

We had done hike to Shaddox Hollow Trail on 11th October 2026 . It is located in Benton County, Arkansas State.

Hike Location

Name: Shaddox Hollow Trail

Distance: 18 miles from Walton Gym (approx.)

Total hiking distance: 1.5 miles

Elevation Gain: ~300 ft.

Hike Team: Abdul, Nishant, Nitin, Shawn and me.

Hiking Experience 

  Today was the first hike for this year for us. Though it looks late but never late to hike as long as we have good weather. we planned to start from walton gym at 8. Abdul and me reached the parking. Shawn just arrived in his new black mercedes convertible. First he found parking between two cars (lot of space), but decided to move on chose the spot near the wall(compact). Parked the car - after couple of to and fro turns. while trying to open the door, found not enough space for the door to open, took out the car and parked in the previous spot. whole thing looked like some one practicing car parking. Nishant, our cab service was waiting for anyone to message if they are coming late - waited for exactly 8 am to send a message that will start. To his surprise others reached gym sharp 8 am including Nitin. While we are waiting for Nishant to arrive, we interviewed Nitin, as he joined us for the first time. We started around 8:25 am and around 8:55 am, Nishant mentioned we lost our way to headed in wrong direction as we were using Nishant's car (Hyundai Palisade) in-built navigation. we switched to google map and located the direction and reached our destination around 9:07 am. The parking lot was full and there was a training team, they were training on how to recover things and person lost in the wild. They told us not to remove any items if we found, as they are placed intentionally for training. 

It was a nice hot sunny weather. The trail was narrow with full of small rocks and going downhill. It looked easy as we hiked down the slope with huge trees on both sides providing good shade. Soon we found the first clue(a cell phone) placed near one of the tree to left of the trail. As we just started the hike, we were very energetic and climbed down faster going into the midst of the forest following the white blazed trail. we were talking random topics off the mind , specially about nearby places for cabins, tents and other water activities which continue for rest of our journey. There were wooden steps taking us further down the trail beside huge rocks. Soon we reached an intersection with blue blazed trail, which led to Beaver lake shoreline. We expected lot of water to be there along the creek, however we were visited with barren land along the shore. there was water/lake at far off distance and lot of dead trees in the water. What surprised us is the trees which are not in water grown good and have fall colours, however those in the water are dead trees with just wooden trunks. Seems like excess water can kill the trees. we thought of utilizing Shawn's camera to take good pictures here, but unfortunately was not a scenic view. Shawn was carrying the heavy camera along with tripod to get most of it, but nature has other plans. We head back to our trail and continue our hike. Now the trail started uphill. There were huge rock formations(limestone) along the left side of the trail. we passed those and steep started to rise making it challenging. As we were immersed in talking we didn't stop to acknowledge or admire the steepness or the forest around us and kept going forward. Soon we reached the parking lot in short time. we expected the trail to be more but in one happy to get to rest from that steep trail. Abdul and Nishant were still on the trail hiking slowly and felt good to see the trail loop is complete. we completed the hike by 9:48 am.

Shawn was desperate to use his camera , so we decided to snap a photo of us at the trail-board. He setup his tripod with some struggle only to realize he forgot memory card. But due to his extensive planning, he searched all his bags to look for the backup memory card. Bingo! he spotted the backup card in one of the secret pockets of the bag(seems like learned from previous experience). We are back on track to have the photo. he adjust the camera and then realized the battery is dead. Again his planning came to rescue where he has battery backups. He quickly replaced the battery and finally able to get some awesome pictures. It was one of the short and wonderful trail with good memories. It definitely is moderate especially the last half mile of the loop which was indeed very steep. As we still have time we decided to play pickle ball at walton gym. We head back to Nishant's car and started to gym. Abdul, as usual looking for comfort, sitting in the middle row trying to look for AC controller , then Nishant turned the car seats to cool. His car has seat coolers for first and second row only. Shawn who was in the third row looked for it, but unlike him Nishant/Hyundai does not have backup plan. He was atleast happy he has air vents to third row. we reached gym by 10:33 am. Had a great time with team. All is Well.

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Bella Vista Ride

 We had done biking to Bella Vista on 6th September 2025. It is located near Bentonville, Arkansas State.

Bike Location

Name: Bella Vista (Razorback Greenway)

Distance: 9 miles from Walton Gym (approx.)

Total Biking distance: 18 miles

Elevation Gain: 1000 ft.

Bike Team: Amita, Pragya(Amita's Daughter) , Abdul, Abhijeet, Hanumantha, Nishant, Zhen and me

Biking Experience:

After doing so many hikes, Abdul (who did only 1 hike) felt bored of hikes and want to do something different, so we decided to go Biking. This was our first time doing something different. Thanks to Amita we all downloaded the app needed to book the bike from one of the walmart bike stations. All set for thrilling experience. We reached the parking deck opposite to Sam Walton Hall around 8:45 am. As usual Hanumantha, Zhen ignored our previous instructions to get water bottle. However Abdul, who is over cautious has got two bottles as he is unaware which bottle will fit to the water bottle stand on the bike, came to the rescue to lend one bottle to Hanumantha. Then comes our Hero Nishant who has come fully prepared with his own bike helment, nice coat and sports outfit. He too has extra water bottle. We all went to the bike station, took sometime to book the bike and take it from the station. However we realized we need to get helmets and they are in the lobby of walmart building. We forgot to carry the Id card to get into the building. But we have Zhen, who couldnt find the parking deck(had difficulty finding the building) parked somewhere else and came walking to where we parked. 

Zhen got the helmets and we all started to Walton Fitness Center where we are supposed to meet Amita and Pragya. Amita called me while we are about to start from our station. As we are too excited about the bike and exploring its features we started late and have not reached yet the fitness center. Amita called again to check where we are as even by walk we should have reached them. I am not good at directions especially all the buildings near the home office, Amita gave up and asked us to wait and she will find and get to us. As we know Amita very studious, found where we are and finally we all met. Forgot to mention about the bikes, these are electric bikes and so with simple peddling we can ride the bike and the electric power boosts to make the ride the bike so smooth and easy. Only Pragya who is a pro biker along with Amita has non electric bike. As expected Amita and Pragya were leading and they are also our path finders/ coaches. They were riding so fast, we were struggling to match their speed and upon special request(as you know it is difficult to convince Amita) they slowed down and we all were biking in one file through the beautiful roads/paths of Bentonville downtown. Have never been to this part of Bentonville and it was amazing to cross the streets amidst wonderful buildings. The paths are perfect for biking, we have a great climate with cool breeze , sun shine and couldnt ask for more. While we were biking, there was a small incident where Nishant tripped off. sorry not Nishant, it was Zhen. Getting Old, am always confused with Zhen and Nishant names. We just paused for sometime Zhen to recover and as usual I gave my free advice this time on how to ride a bike to the team during our break. 

We started again and being electric have not felt much work out while biking. There were couple of tunnels we went into to cross the highways and it was amazing experience. First tim felt great where cars, trucks have to wait for us to pass by. Always was on other side of the coin(used to wait for bikers to go first) , now our turn to be on bike and look at all those cars waiting on us. Similar feeling when there is traffic jam on other side of the road and we drive smooth without any hassle. I know it sounds mean, but thats real life. The bike trail was adjacent to our previous hike Slaughter Penn, we have river stream to our right all through our bike path/trail. We were slowing down/ picking speed in between to catch up with other members to have chit chat about weather, bike, past experience etc and slowly moving forward.

We met many bikers, serious runners, kids in strollers along our path. Good to see many faces on the trail. We reached the spot where we initially planned as our destination. There was lot of grass and shade and river stream. We parked our bikes and Abdul, the stylish among our group got busy taking his selfies, hiring photographer Abhijeet for his stunts, ignoring others. After the photo session, we went near the stream and had fun throwing pebbles into the water and counting the time it is bouncing on the water. Finally we concluded Abdul throw was good, the pebble was good but water was not good for pebble to bounce. Nishant, Abhijeet and me, sports persons in our team have done decent throws. Amita tried too but gave up before it is too late. we then decided to take a team picture, while we were waiting for someone to take a picture of us, we decided to go to Thai Basil for lunch. We got the picture and as we were riding electric bike we felt it was too easy and want to go further not considering Pragya the strongest amongst us who is riding non electric one. We continued further, where there is a lake near by. Unfortunately after reaching there we realized it is closed and had to turn back. 

At this point some of us decided to turn off electric and use our energy to bike to do some work out. This made us to slow down and we slowly, steadily retraced our path to where we started. What was easy earlier turned difficult now without the electric. Switching bike gears, constant peddling slowly able to reach the entrance of the trail where we started. Took a short break to relax and Abhijeet seized the chance to market his Samsung phone and almost got added one more(Pragya) to Samsung admirers by showcasing the pictures taken. Everyone was tired and hungry. Abdul, whom rules never obey - was on hurry to attend lunch invite had his own route going through the closed paths. We followed Amita our guide , crossed the streets and finally reached our bike parking stations. we returned the bike, decided to meet at Thai Basil. We reached the restaurant, had good food and left. Had an amazing experience and fun time with the team. All is Well.

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