Blowing Springs Park

We had done hike at Blowing Springs Park on 18th October 2026 . It is located in Bella Vista, Arkansas State.

Hike Location

Name: Blowing Springs Park Extended Loop

Distance: 8 miles from Walton Gym (approx.)

Total hiking distance: ~3.9 miles

Elevation Gain: ~357 ft.

Hike Team: Indrajeet, Amita, Madhuri, Nishant, Shawn and me.

Hiking Experience

    Today was great weather to go for a hike, however seems like its another lazy Sunday for most of us as two members dropped out early in the morning and most of us got up late or their errands tied them up. We were supposed to meet at 10 am at Walton gym and then reach to our destination by 10:30 am but we all directly reached Blowing Springs Park parking lot as 10 am seems too early in the morning. For a change Nishant was the first to reach the parking lot(learnt from previous hike maybe). While Nishant and me figuring our our hike trail, Amita and Indrajeet came in their "TESLA" car. As we know there will always be something special about the Car, this time it was about Halloween. we get to see the new Halloween theme of the car(flying ghost), where it is interactive with all the pumpkins, boos, skeletons and witch popping on the screen based on interactions on the screen. Also whenever the car locks it produces sound similar to halloween boo sound. Initially we thought it was dog which is passing by , later Amita revealed it was their car. Then came Shawn in his BMW convertible sports car. he was accelerating while reaching parking lot not sure if intentional :) . It was 10:33 and then Madhuri informed saying she need another 10 mins , like Nishant in last hike. While waiting for Madhuri , Amita took no time to give demo to Shawn of the Tesla's Halloween theme. There were lot of cars with bikes in the parking lot, seems like this was popular biking trail. Madhuri reached the spot and we immediately set out for hike at 10:45 am, unfortunately she missed the demo! Shawn packed his camera and his backpack weighed almost 30 lbs.

The trail led us into the hill covered with trees on both sides. It was moderate slope and with little cold breeze we hiked further. The trail was narrow with two people can walk side by side and there were proper sign posts about the trail and directions as there are multiple trails and intertwine along the way. Since this is first time for Madhuri to join us in hike, Amita started investigation about her (I mean interaction). it was steady slope along the trail with sunlight trying to reach us through the gaps in the trees and leaves which helped us not to get overheat or cold. There were lot of huge rocks like steps along the trail. Though there was no water flowing, the trail or rocks are not completely dry, indicating there was rain earlier. Actually there supposed to be waterfall and good scenic views in the trail but looks like due to extra hot climate for past few months everything ran dry. There were many bikers crossing us, they seem more happy energetic than we who are on foot. The trail was lot of twist and sharp turns so we need to watch out for the signs to make sure we are on the trail. Amita and Madhuri hiked with great speed as the interview is going on not worrying about where the rest of us are there. Shawn and me involved in conversations about mountain biking and decided to do it next time. Nishant and Indrajeet were too engrossed about food options, which and where food is good, enjoying the trail scenery and were trailing behind. AT one point the slope was little steep but we did not notice or feel it much as we were busy in conversations.

There were huge rocks on right of our trail. We were traversing the hill , so to our left is sliding down the mountain. At one point of trail there were small tiny adorable statues of hedgehog and snow white dwarves. We took a short break to make sure we all are together and then hiked further. There were metal grills on the trail for bikers to pass through. WE continue with same pace and kept going forward, in between looking at map to make sure we are on right path. Soon we reached a small foot over bridge over a small creek. We decided to take a break here and watch the creek and small fishes in the water. We thought this is the best place for our photographer to setup his camera(tripod). As always I took the chance to boast about my hiking experience in Mumbai. Shawn setup his camera which keeps clicking the photo until it feels the picture is good, while there were more than 20 clicks, Indrajeet had enough of it and we are good with the pics taken by the AI camera. We just continued the trail and reached our parking lot , it was just opposite. we completed the whole loop in about 1 hour 30 mins. It was a great hike, nice experience and memorable. All is Well.

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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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