A Look Back at My First Solo Backpacking Trip Ever (2002)

My very first ever attempt to go backpacking was back in June of 2002. That seems like such a long time ago. My plan was to hike the 7.4 mile loop near in the Buffalo National River area. From the moment I left the highway to get to the trailhead, things did not go as planned.

Photo from the same trail, but on a separate trip a month later.

It's funny, I spent more than a year figuring out how to get the right gear to go backpacking. My gear was not the top of the line back then. It's was the best I could afford (and sometimes a bit more than we could afford). I considered splitting this story into an article about the gear I had with me (it wasn't light) and a separate article about what happened on the trip. But the more I thought about it, the problems I had, had nothing to do with the gear I was carrying and everything to do with my complete inability to figure out a map. Before I get too far ahead of myself with analysis over what went wrong, here is what happened.

Getting to the Cecil Cove Loop Trailhead

This was before the age of the smart phone with Google Maps and other navigation tools. I had a state highway map, a detailed topo map of the Buffalo River trail system, and the Tim Ernst Trail Guide.

I want to take a moment to emphasize a distinction between backcountry and front country trails. When you go to a State Park to hike a 2-3 mile loop trail, and there is a nice paved parking lot at the trailhead with toilets and signs and pamphlets, cute little foot bridges or stepping stones to give you dry passage over creeks and drainage areas, there is nothing wrong with those hiking experiences, but they are not the same as backcountry trails. Just to get to the trailhead for many backcountry trails, you often have to take gravel or dirt forest roads where the roads themselves are often not clearly marked, there may be rough washed out portions of the road. They are frequently winding and may have steep grades, passing other vehicles is sometimes sketchy because there is no shoulder and most of the time, there isn't much room for two vehicles to pass.

We had lived in Springfield, Missouri for the first seven years of our marriage. I learned about the Buffalo while we were living there and backpacking in the Buffalo area had become an ambition of mine, so that is where I planned my first trip.

I was also a novice at navigating on the dirt and gravel forest roads. Travel on these roads is slow. The vehicle I was driving was a Ford Astro minivan. It was not designed for rough roads. It handled those roads okay, but I went slow. When you're driving much slower than you normally do on smooth paved highways and city streets, your gauge of the distances you have traveled is also off. 

I don't recall exactly where I got the information, but apparently either the trail guide or one of my maps referred to the first dirt road off Hwy 7 as Forest Road (FR) #19. There was no sign off the highway indicating the number of the road, so I was confused and somewhat hesitant from the start. I drove past it a couple of times before I realized I had gone too far. When I finally identified the unmarked dirt forest road, it seemed like I was driving for an eternity before I got to the first turn. The intersection was also completely unmarked. I asked a man who was walking along that road if he knew which road lead to the trailhead, or at least what the names/numbers of the roads were. He told me "I don't know. I'm just walking." I was confounded by this response because it seemed like if you were walking on a road, you would probably have come from somewhere and be going somewhere. I don't know.

In any case, I made a choice at that intersection and made my way along until I saw a sign that said "Buffalo National River". Just a few yards beyond that sign was a creek. "That must be the Buffalo River," I thought to myself. Just before that spot, there was a drive with some parking and a house. "That must be the trailhead," I decided. Those familiar with the Buffalo will likely know that the sign I saw was actually a park boundary, well north of the actual Buffalo River. It was a close, but no cigar, type situation.

Let's have a look at where I landed.

The map above is from the most recent Tim Ernst Buffalo River trail guide. There is a road labeled 2800 on the east side of the map. That apparently used to be called FR#19, because that's the road on which I drove into the area. The red P is for the parking for the actual trailhead, and the Buffalo River is in the very lower righthand corner of the map. The road goes through it as a river ford. The blue box is as far as I drove, but I convinced myself that the little creek contained in that blue box was the Buffalo River. Why else would there be a giant sign, saying Buffalo National River, just before you reach it. Like the road that crosses the actual Buffalo River, the road I was on, crossed that little creek as a ford. 

Well, I knew that if I had crossed the Buffalo, I had gone too far. I turned around and went back to that driveway/parking area. Just past that parking area, there was a house. I figured that was probably an office for the forest rangers. There was a small path leading into the forest behind it with an archway. I convinced myself that this was the trailhead.

What I had actually done was park at a private residence where the family apparently hosted concerts for bands their kids and their friends played in (hence the field for parking). The path and archway had nothing to do with the actual trail. I was wandering into the forest on private land in the boonies in Arkansas. Brilliant. It didn't take too long before that trail petered out and I was lost.

One thing I did pick up from my studies in backpacking was that you should study other features on your detailed maps, so that if you get lost or need to bail out, you can find your way to safety. Let's take look at a more detailed map of the area.

I knew that north of the section of trail where I was starting from (in the yellow box on the map above) there was a road trace just north of the trail that would take me back to Caver's camp, and therefore to my car. Unfortunately, I had started wandering somewhere in the area of the orange box, and I headed north from that point.

The road trace that the orange arrow runs through on this current map wasn't there 20 years ago, so I hiked north for approximately 3 miles, bushwhacking through forest to that dirt road where the orange arrow is indicating.

In Search of Civilization

Back at this time, water bladders with a hose running out your backpack were the standard hydration kit. I believe I had a two-liter bladder that was undoubtedly filled from home. I suspect my pack weighed around 30 lbs because of the heavier gear I had at the time. It was also June in Arkansas, and I was hiking uphill and away from any water sources. I was also stressed because I knew I was lost. At one point, I decided, it might be a good idea to stop, rest, take a look at my map, and see if I could figure out where I went wrong, and how to fix it. I sat down on a log, pulled out my map and compass, and tried to orient myself. Unfortunately, the log where I decided to take a seat was home to hundreds of ants, who immediately let me know my butt was not welcome on their home.

I jumped up, brushed myself off, grabbed my pack and continued north. It was probably about noon by the time I reached the road, though it was not the road I expected. For some reason I cannot recall, I decided to walk west when I got to the road. It might be because I saw a driveway near the end where that road came to an end. There was a smoldering fire near the end of the driveway with a sign that said "No Trespassing!" and the sign had bullet holes in it. As thirsty and tired as I was, I decided I decided I might find another house in the opposite direction if I continued to walk that way.

I have no idea how far, but there was another house further down the road. The people in that house evidently didn't see many backpackers with giant packs hiking through their neighborhood. I had to explain where I had come from. I showed them my map. They had never seen a detailed topo map of their area, and they liked it. They showed me where I currently was and told me how I could walk back to where my car was located by road. "Go down this road to where they've got a bunch of rabbit hutches, then turn right...". They gave me some water. I was grateful for it, then I continued on down the road.

Not too much further, someone driving a minivan, came driving up the dirt road. The driver was a local and stopped to ask me where I was heading and if I needed a ride. I explained where I was heading and what had happened. I was glad to accept the ride. It would have been easier miles than bushwhacking through the forest, but it would have been around 10 more miles, and I was already exhausted and had no water.

I should say here, that I wasn't completely dumb. I had a filter for getting drinkable water from natural sources. I had a plan to keep hydrated, but because I was trekking uphill that whole time, and also because most of the roads are built on higher ground to avoid flooding washouts, the opportunities I anticipated, being that the actual trail runs along a couple of creeks, were non-existent in the place I wound up hiking.

Well, that kind gentleman, who offered me the ride, not only took me back to my car, but he evidently knew the people whose house I had parked at. This is where I learned about them hosting concerts. He also offered to take me past that place to show me where the real trailhead was located. It's so much easier when you're with someone who has genuine knowledge! I was very grateful for his kindness and patience.

When he dropped me back at my van, I was too tired and stressed to consider attempting to start the hike at the real location. I threw my pack back into the van, and headed home. I believe I was also covered in seed ticks, so I wanted to get home and clean myself up.

Looking back through my journal account of this trip, it was apparently later in the afternoon when I got back to my car. It was 4:30 pm. I attempted to find another location to camp, but designated campsites were all full. This is why I ended up driving back home.

Return to Cecil Cove

Having learned where the trailhead was, I wanted to go back. About a month later, my brother came for a visit and we drove back down to the Buffalo to hike the Cecil Cove loop. We ended up cutting the loop short, but we successfully got to the trailhead, hiked the majority of the loop, but walked back to the trailhead on one of the forest roads instead of finishing the southern end of the loop (I don't think my brother was as excited about hiking as me).

Me in front of a cave near the trail

Brother next to the remains of a homestead fireplace

Oh cool. I just found this map in one of my journals from that time. This is a photo copy of one of the map from the older edition of the Tim Ernst Buffalo River trail guide. I have highlighted the route my brother and I took on our day hike. You can see where the trail continues to the south and goes down toward the Buffalo River itself, then back up to the trailhead, but we took the forest road as a shortcut. Also worth noting, the numbering on the forest road is #19 on this map.

Lessons Learned

What lessons can be gleaned from this experience?

Modern navigation tools make things easier

Having tools like Google Maps, FarOut, and AllTrails, as well as devices like the Garmin InReach GPS device make it so much easier to navigate to these locations. Even so, these tools do not guarantee that you will get to your intended destination. They have limitations like battery life, some depend on having mobile service. Having some redundancy in your navigation toolkit is a good idea, especially when you are going somewhere new to you without someone who knows the area.

Also, we now have better tools on the internet, like blogs, Facebook groups, and YouTube where other people have documented their trips and experiences. Here is an experiment. I haven't done this before, so let's see how it goes. I'm going to go to YouTube and search for Cecil Cove Loop and see what I can find right now.

Yeah, super easy. There are dozens of videos of the loop. This was the first result, and it shows the drive in as well as the trailhead. That alone would have let me know I was not in the right place when I started my trip.

A scouting trip would have helped

It may not always be an option, depending on how far away your hiking/backpacking adventure is from where you live, but the Buffalo River was a couple of hours away from where we were living in Missouri at this time. While I will say, taking a day to go scout out the area would have seemed very difficult to me at the time (we were both working a lot of hours, had limited income, and not much free time because our kids were little), but going to a location just to orient yourself in that location can make a huge difference in the success of a later trip. 

My very first visit to Eagle Rock Loop was a scouting trip with my wife. We drove to the area, found a couple of trailheads, we walked from one of the trail spurs leading from a trailhead out to the actual trail and figured out which direction the trail went from there. All of this was extremely helpful for me when I actually went there to hike the whole loop. We were also able to do a short day hike, enjoy the area, and grab lunch.

Orienting yourself takes time. If you don't take the time to do it before your trip, you need to allow yourself time when you do your trip. Even if I was convinced that the creek I had crossed was the Buffalo, it would have been good to continue driving on that forest road to confirm that the things I expected to be on the opposite side of the Buffalo River were there. If I had done that, I would have seen the Caver's camp area, the Erby church, and signs for the actual loop. 

Impatience can be dangerous

I was so eager to get hiking that I rushed to get on trail without confirming that I as in the right place. I was lucky that I didn't get injured. Bushwhacking through the forest is almost always more dangerous than hiking along established routes. There may be concealed holes and difficult terrain. I was on private property and might have happened across people who were hostile to trespassers.

It's okay to turn around
As soon as the trail started to fade, I should have stopped and looked back, then backtracked until I found the path again. It's possible that I missed a turn, but in this case, I don't think there was a turn. If I couldn't pick up the trail where it petered out, I should have bailed right there and then. I think I was so convinced that I was on the trail and that it just was not marked well that I assumed it wasn't going to get better.

Don't force things to fit

The area I settled on really didn't match the description in the trail guide, but I convinced myself that it might kind of be what Ernst was describing, maybe. There is a life lesson in this that reaches beyond backpacking and hiking. We all have the ability to fool ourselves. We have biases and preconceived notions about what we expect, and it is easy to ignore things that conflict with those expectations and to cherry pick things that confirm our preconceived ideas.

Reading through my journals from this era in my life is full of these instances as I was beginning to grapple with my faith. I found confirming evidence in favor of my beliefs and discounted things that conflicted with it. It's painful to read.

Things I Did Right

Did I do anything right on that first trip? It's difficult to point to anything. I didn't leave trash in the forest. I suppose on returning to my vehicle, I could have gone back to the actual trail and started hiking in an effort to finish my hike, and I think that would have been more risky because I was tired. I didn't have experience in finding a decent tent sight at that point, so I most likely would have ended up with snowballing bad decisions. Hitting the eject button was probably the best decision I made that day.

That about wraps up this article. One final thought about this trip. Back then 7.4 miles seemed like a big day of hiking to me. It's funny because I'm old and fat now, I have arthritis, and other aches and pains, but 7.4 miles would be a short half day hike for me now.

I may do a future article about the issue of dispersed camping. As I progressed in my backpacking attempts back in those days, dispersed camping was a challenge for me, and it really wasn't until semi recently that I got the hang of it. It's also a facet of my backpacking where I hope to increase my skills and knowledge in the coming months and years.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found this entertaining if not useful.

Gavagai