Syllamo...or not. Little Blakely anyone?

The next morning I still noticed a slight fever and wheeziness in my lungs, but I was ready to put my body to the test. We crossed the border into AR via rural highways. There were tree branches everywhere…seemed like tornados may have gone through the area, but much more widespread. Eventually we reached the Syllamo trails…and they were closed. We went to another trailhead…closed. The forest service informed us that the tree damage was from the ice storm in January, and the trails will not open any time soon. They noted some trail closures due to logging on the web site, but failed to note the semi-permanent closing due to the ice storm – probably not important.

I called the Womble State Forest and they noted that the trails were open, and sounded incredulous when I asked about ice storms…guess it didn’t impact this area. So, we made the 3-4 hour drive South to the Ouachita (Wau-Shi-Taw) area, arriving around 4 pm. By the way, the weather was 72 degrees and sunny, so we cruised with the windows rolled down – awesome!

We decided to check out the Little Blakely trail first, which is near Ouachita State Park. The directions I stored in my phone said the directions “got complicated”, so we also got directions from the park office. At the end of some gravel/dirt roads, we did find the trailhead. It was time for the inaugural ride of the Superfly (at least for me) and to see if I could perform.

The first 50 years included a tiny rocky downhill that went right to a bridge crossing. Nothing major, but the angle when approaching the bridge seemed like it could go wrong quickly. Anyway, no worries and we began the climb along the trail. So far, so good. We took the North loop and continued to climb. Once at the top we were rewarded with a long slight descent that had lots of speedbump jumps…pretty fun! We then did switchbacks down the mountain; nothing too technical. Eventually we hit some rock gardens while on benched-in trails with some drop offs…the blood shed began. No major injuries, but definitely took some adjusting to dial our level of control back in. Brian got a flat tire, replaced it, and we carried on. The trail would in and out of inlets of Lake Ouachita; it was scenic and fun. It seemed like you were always doing a climb or descent, but nothing too major – always fun. It was getting late (7 or so), so we took the winding trail back to the trailhead. This was one of the best parts of the trail…lots of bench cut trail on somewhat steep hills that would occasionally dip for a creek crossing and curve back up and around the next outlet. Good short climbs, fun downhill. Superfly shifted like crap with clicks and clacks all time; however, I was happy to be running well on the inside. I felt relatively strong and eventually seemed to have good flow and control. I think we only went just over 10 miles, but it was a pretty draining session; especially coming out of winter.

We decided to go straight for food. We headed into town and got Mexican – not much else still open. After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the park and setup camp. It was windy; especially at the end of the point we camped on, but it felt good. Showered, then sleep. Mmm, sleep.