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.
