If you completed the Wilderness Navigation Class in October, or you took the navigation class a year or two ago and you want to refresh your wilderness navigation skills, this trip is for you. We will hike the Buckeye Mountain Trail and do some off-trail route finding in the Caney Creek Wilderness in Arkansas. We will only hike about 8 or 9 miles so we will have plenty of time to practice our navigation skills. Note that this is not a beginner trip. Participants must have some backpacking experience. Signup is not required for the class, but it is required for this backpack trip. Contact Bill to sign up or sign up at the Wilderness Navigation Class. Leaders: Bill Greer 972-247-0446 and Arthur Kuehne 214-902-9260
We will camp Friday night near the Buckeye trailhead. Saturday will be spent on the ridge top Buckeye Trail sharpening our compass and map reading skills. The views from Buckeye show us lots of features that can be compared with what we see on our topographic maps. Saturday afternoon we will leave the Buckeye Trail and follow an off-trail route to our camp for the night. Sunday we will follow a mostly off trail route back to our cars. This off trail section helps you learn to find your way when the big views available from a ridge aren’t there. We’ll find a small waterfall few hikers have seen since it is not on a trail. This is a scenic and enjoyable hike but you should be comfortable hiking with your pack on rough, sometimes steep terrain without a trail. You’ll find out why we enjoy getting off trail so much.
Most Dallas outings are “rain or shine” but since the whole idea of this hike is to spend lots of time looking at our maps and the mountains around us we need to have good weather. It's hard to learn much about reading a topo map when you're looking at the inside of a cloud! Our rain date will be the next weekend, October 22-23.
Since we will spend a lot of time practicing skills learned in the Wilderness Navigation Class this trip is intended for those who have taken the class.
Buckeye Mountain Trail / Caney Creek
AR
United States