Quest for the Ultimate Outdoors Vacation

What makes for a great vacation in the outdoors? A lull on the beach, a sweaty hike into the mountains, tasting local food along the drive to your destination? Considering gas prices are so high and the cost of a getaway is never cheap and fulfilling at the same time, I went looking for an unexpected place. I asked myself, what’s an adventure that most folks tend to overlook? Could I find a place where in one week, my friends and I could have a blast without going broke?

Thinking of something off the beaten path, I noticed Arkansas was mentioned on National Geographic’s Adventure Magazine. Mountain View, Arkansas was named one of the 100 best adventure town in the United States.

Mountain View

So I asked myself, what’s so cool in Mountain View? I’ve been to Arkansas just once driving through from Texas to Michigan and all I remember is the greenery we were surrounded by and occasional rivers we passed. Looking into what there is to do in Mountain View, I found out the town is in north Arkansas, at the very south-eastern edge of the Ozarks. Known for Beanfest, a town tradition since 1982, Mountain View offers newly expanded Ozark Highlands Trails, first-rate fishing holes and canoeing waters and I’m a sucker for all three. The 50-mile looping bike path was dubbed “epic” by the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

Ropes Courses and Zip Lines

For some adrenaline-raising action, there are multiple zipline and high ropes courses in the surrounding area. The newest state-of-the-art course is Loco Ropes, where zipliners speed through a thicket of trees, not an open field like the zipline courses you’re used to. That sounds awesome. Good thing for me that it’s on the northern part of the state, all the closer to Michigan.

Ozarks

See a photo of the Ozarks below

The Ozarks themselves would be a scene to explore – a landscape of rolling hills that stretches from lower Missouri to northern Arkansas and parts of eastern Oklahoma. Contained within is the Ozark National Forest and that just sounds enchanting to me. I can already see all the fog-covered treetops I’d like to photograph early in the morning from a high vantage point.

Wild Caving

Conversely, deep beneath the Ozarks where water still flows, guided wild caving tours take place for the physically fit. In the limestone caves there are subterranean lakes, mazes, crystals, cave-dwelling creatures and wondrous stalagmite, stalactite, helictite and flowstone formations.

The Cosmic Cavern in the Ozarks is one cave that will definitely be high on the list of “must-dos” in Arkansas. It’s one of the top 10 show caves in the United States that’s been featured in multiple newspapers nationwide. The discovery of a 2,000 foot section in 1993, now named “Silent Splendor,” was featured on CBS News. I spoke to Angie Austin, the operations manager for the Cosmic Cavern to find out more. She says this is a living cave, constantly wet, dripping and growing. “There are beautiful formations in our cave,” she said. “soda straw formations, two bottomless lakes… We offer an after-hours tour that is called the ‘wild cave tour.’ It’s where you get really dirty; you wear a hardhat, it’s more similar to rock climbing.”

Buffalo National River

Vying for the top spot against the cavern on my “must-do” list is the Buffalo National River, which celebrates its 40th anniversary as the first national river in the United States. I can float there with my family, fish, camp, and view wildlife like elk that have been reintroduced to Arkansas. I can’t wait to enjoy the prevalent serenity that wasn’t always so peaceful. As somewhat of a history buff, I was happy to find out that the riverbank was the site of many skirmishes and guerrilla group activity during the Civil War. That’s definitely my favorite way of learning history, hands-on and on-location.

White River

I’m just crossing my fingers that the purported White River monster has left the much longer stretch of water that is the White River, not terribly far from the Buffalo National River. In the Civil War, the White River was used for transportation where the monster was believed to have overturned a boat. Its last reported sighting was in 1915. But not even a river monster can scare me away from the White River. Imagining kayaking down the 720-mile winding system that transitions between rapids to still water to industrial ports has me packing my dry-bag already.

Fishing

Of course, I’d like to try my luck at Arkansas’s world-class fishing. The best part of it is that it’s possible to go fishing year-round because of the state’s moderate weather. To find out more about the fishing opportunities there, I spoke to Billy Lindsey, the owner of Lindsey’s Resort in Heber Springs, a stone’s throw away from Mountain View. Lindsey said that Arkansas boasts some of the best fishing in the lower 48. The state holds the world record for largest German brown trout at 40 pounds and 4 ounces. At his resort, he runs guided fishing trips along the Greers Ferry Lake where a dam built in the 50s and 60s causes the water temperature to be ideal for trout, and there are plenty of them! Lindsey recalled fishing for four different species of trout: rainbow, cutthroat, brownback, and brook.

Nine species of bass can be found in Arkansas’s 75 counties. Arkansas lays the claim to fame that it has produced three current world-record fish. Who knows, maybe I could catch the fourth? While there’s much more fishing to be had for bass and crappie, there are activities for those who don’t fancy fishing. Lindsey said Greers Ferry Lake itself is a serene spot with beautiful scenery where people can take part in water sports, scuba diving, and just plain relaxation.

With all that and so much more (I didn’t even mention in this article things like off-roading, freewheeling, hiking, and spectacular waterfalls), there’s good reason why I think Arkansas could be my next outdoors adventure. The beauty of it all is that it’s a small state that sits at the cross roads between southern, western and northern culture that has a concentration of outdoors activities within close proximity of each other.

Links

If you’re interested in an adventure to Arkansas yourself, check out some of these helpful links:

• Loco Ropes at Ozark Folk Center State Park: Zip line and ropes course
• 40th Anniversary of the Buffalo National River
• Wild Caving
• The Little Red River, Lindsey’s Resort
• The White River, Gastons Resort
• Also, Arkansas’s tourism board makes a few impressive travel guides for free. I requested the vacation kit, find the list of guides here.

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Attending “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” Workshop for All the Right Reasons

“It’s like going back to girl scouts or campfire girls, but with a much more adult environment. You get to do all those things from camp as a kid, but with pear margaritas,” jokes Becoming an Outdoors Woman workshop attendant Valerie Morrill from Yuma, Arizona.

Morrill has attended five weekend workshop retreats offered by her state’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) program since her first experience in 2010. BOW has only been around since 1991, created as a gateway for any woman who wants to experience the outdoors in a safe, comfortable setting. At various BOW classes, and events such as the three-day “deluxe” retreat at Saguaro Lake Ranch in Arizona, women learn outdoors skills varying from making their own tea to shooting guns and bows.

When many people think of hunters, their first thought is not “women”. Morrill pointed out that there’s a deep rift between the genders that participate in the outdoors and that’s part of the reason why the BOW program exists. “The overarching logic of why these programs are available is [because] our society used to be rural, these sorts of life lessons were just very common because people were in a rural setting on a farm,” explains Morrill. “But, as we’ve moved into this much more urban type of population, all of these little life lessons are kind of lost. There’s a real gap between hands-on knowledge of the outdoors. You get it now from Disney Channel and Discovery Channel instead of having that real ability in the outdoors.”

As a retired biologist who worked for the federal government on conservation management, Morrill was often in the outdoors, but never got to be a participant in what the outdoors offered. Through BOW, she’s surprised herself with many of the things she’s learned. “Each time I go I’m learning something new,” Morrill said. “I think I’m such a smarty pants and I go ‘Whoa! I didn’t know that.’” The charm of BOW retreats is that they offer a plethora of classes that one woman couldn’t possibly do in one weekend.

Just like most children’s camps or family camps, BOW weekend workshops offer classes in horseback riding, photography, high ropes, rock climbing, shooting, archery, edible and medicinal plants, and even a class titled Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Javelina. Morrill was especially intrigued by her archery classes and by the caliber of her instructor who was a professional, tournament-competing archer. “There she is, teaching you, I was so, I don’t know… It really did something to me,” said Morrill. “I got nuts about it. I went a bought a bow and I went and tried archery [bow] hunting. There’s just something about it. It’s a quiet sport.”

Morrill is just one of hundreds of women between 18 and 87 whom BOW organizers have seen repeatedly attend the BOW workshop in the 15 years of the workshops in Arizona. Kim Kreuzer, the office manager for the Arizona Wildlife Federation and co-organizer of the workshops in her state said it’s very rare not to see a woman come back for another workshop. “We have such a variety of personalities come,” Kreuzer said. “Sometimes you get the girls afraid to touch worms when out fishing. Then they get really excited and bait their own hook. They go from one personality to another – they become more adventurous…. It’s always the first one that’s hardest.”

The BOW workshops, held a few times a year in most states and in Canada as well, draw all sorts of women for reasons that vary even more than the women’s personalities. Morrill wanted to see the other side of the coin and participate in everything she was working to conserve as a federal biologist. The first time she attended, she came alone. Following her great experience, she encouraged her sister to come out. As a school principal, Morrill’s sister wanted to learn to be comfortable in the outdoors, but never really had the opportunity.

Kreuzer said she’s constantly blown away by the women who show up and for what reason. “We’ll have really shy people and really outgoing ones that come. Women who come maybe because they’ve lost loved ones and come to get their life back on track. Some come so they can meet new friends and get out and do things.”

She recounted a particularly touching story that made a woman come out because of unfortunate circumstances.

“I think it was the first BOW workshop I went to, there was a woman, part of her face was missing. Her eye had been replaced and she had one hand.” Kreuzer said. “You hate to ask, what happened to you? I didn’t say anything. On the car ride to the shooting class, she opened up and told us that one night coming home from shopping she got out of her car and a man had followed her and approached her. She dropped everything and ran as fast as she could, quite a distance, but the guy finally caught up with her and shot her in the face and arm. She got robbed, and now she’s taking shooting classes to get over her fear of handguns. You can just never tell how many different women come and for all the different reasons.” The woman attended more BOW workshops and is now an instructor there who comes to help out in the evenings.

The BOW “Deluxe” retreat coming up in Arizona is a smaller retreat designed for those 35 participating women who may not yet be very comfortable in a primitive outdoor setting. The program is housed in a bed-and-breakfast type of suite with fewer room mates, while the other weekend workshops in Friendly Pines Camp offered by the Arizona Wildlife Federation has 100 women who camp in primitive cabins and are a little bit more comfortable with the outdoors already.

To find out more about the BOW “Deluxe” workshop in Arizona click here, or go to the BOW national website here to find out about workshops in your state.

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How To Properly Dispose of Human Waste in the Wild

You do it everyday, but you don’t always think of what happens with it when you’re done – I’m referring, of course, to poop. In the wild, proper waste disposal should be of special consideration, since often there is no conventional disposal method. Improperly disposed human waste can lead to Giardia, which is the cause of “Beaver fever”, a 2 to 6 week case of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, and other unpleasantries.

Water sources are also polluted not only by human waste, but both livestock and wildlife. “Wherever soils are thin or sparse, such as the arctic tundra or above treeline, rainstorms can flush food wastes and other pollutants from campsites directly into water sources,” advises the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics‘ “Outdoor Skills and Ethics”, which provided the basis for this article. With their help, I’ve put together a practical guide to disposing fecal waste in the wild.

• If there is a designated facility or outhouse, always use it.
• If you are in a primitive location where an outhouse is unavailable or far away, dig a cat hole where no human walks. With a trowel, spade or any other digging tool, dig a hole 6 to 8 inches deep, at least 200 feet away from any water source, your campsite, trails and other drainage. Do your deed and cover the hole back up with the soil you dug out initially.
• If you stay in that same area for a long time, make a different cat hole with each use. For groups, it is wise to have a personal “territory” to minimize the chances of accidental contact with a foreign cat hole.
  “The microbes found in soil will break down feces and the pathogens they contain. Don’t leave human waste under rocks because it will decompose slowly there and may wash into water sources.”
• For groups or those with children, digging a latrine might be a good option. “Site the latrine as you would a cat hole and make sure that the route to the latrine is over durable surfaces. Dig a trench 200 feet away from a water source, trail or campsite. Dig it 6 to 8 inches deep, and long enough to accommodate the needs of your party. Use soil from the trench to cover the feces after each use.” Cover the entire site with soil upon departure.
• Latrines are best when there are people without the necessary skills to use their own cat hole (like children) and “to concentrate the waste in one properly located place, thereby reducing the risk of water contamination and accidental direct contact.” Adversely, this reduces the decomposition rate, giving animals more time to find and scatter the remains. Latrines are designed for large groups staying in one area for a long time, or when camping with small children. Consider what best suits your needs before digging a latrine.
• In some terrains it is best to pack out your waste in sealable bags or a “poop tube”, which is a home-made or commercially-made device designed to transport human waste. Pack out or use a “poop tube” when you are in an area dense with waterways (visible water flow, even if it’s dry at the time), in areas where soil is thin or sparse (like the arctic tundra or above treeline), in alpine, in desert areas, on wintry, frozen ground or on rock where a cat hole cannot be dug. The contents of the “poop tube” can be discarded in pit toilets, portable johns, or in civilization. Check with the local land manager for recommendations on other appropriate disposal techniques.

As far as toilet paper goes, pack it out in a sealable bag, like a Ziploc. “Otherwise, use as little as possible and bury it deeply in the cat hole. Burning toilet paper at the site has caused wildfires…. and is not recommended.” Try to use biodegradable toilet paper to leave in the cat hole, if that is unavailable, at least don’t take perfumed or dyed toilet paper. “‘Natural’ toilet paper like grass, sticks and snow can be surprisingly effective.” Never leave feminine products in the wild because they take a long time to decompose and will attract animals.

This copyrighted information has been adapted and reprinted under special permission from the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics © 2011. For more information on Leave No Trace, please visit www.LNT.org.

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