Maumelle/Pinnacle Mountain (AR)

Campsite on the Arkansas River at Maumelle Army Corp of Engineers campground

With the Ghosts of Mississippi in our rear-view mirror, we headed north towards Memphis and took a hard left onto I-40.  Glory was in a chucking rhythm with the less-than-smooth Arkansas roadways; producing the metronomic sound that is made when the stylus has reached the end of the record and is caught in an endless loop of the vinyl groove terminus.  Trying to take full advantage of the local history and culture, we immersed ourselves in various Arkansas visitor guide videos to prepare ourselves for what to expect.  We found THIS ONE to be the most entertaining.  

Eastern Arkansas a unique treasure unto itself; laden with flooded croplands, man-made levies, and home of The World’s Largest Fireworks Outlet (although we saw this proclamation in SC, TN, AL, & MS).  With the Hank’s nose pointed towards the state capitol, we veered slightly northwest from the setting sun and found another temporary home at Maumelle Army Corp of Engineer campground.  Anxious to relax from a day of roadway rocking, we set up in record time—24 seconds to be exact.  If it weren’t for the triple espresso at the North Little Rock Starbucks, it would have easily taken an hour.




Maumelle ACoE campground sits adjacent to the  McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, a series of navigation pools used to help ships navigate upstream toward Oklahoma.  The Arkansas River is one of the Mississippi's largest tributaries, flowing 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, through to Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  

The riverside setting was quite serene, with the occasional monster-sized barge being escorted upstream by skillfully piloted tugboats casting blinding beams of light.  Wintering eagles can be seen in large numbers along the Arkansas River—migrating from Canada and the U.S. Great Lakes region—and we were fortunate to have one grace us with its majestic presence as it claimed the lofty boughs of the hardwood next to our sight.

“I’ve found the safest place to store my valuables is in a trash sack. Unless I invite a bunch of hobos over one night, who’s going to rummage through rubbish?” ― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title

One of my most odd traits is that I like to look at garbage.  Not necessarily "dig through"...but sometimes just "look."  Growing up in a rural county, we had a county dump.  We would haul a truckload of junk “to” the dump, but we never failed to bring something back.  I was “green” when being green wasn’t cool.  After traveling the world and seeing the spectrum of rich to impoverished, I now find myself fascinated in what the local population considers “substance of no further value.”  You can really tell a lot about society by what they discard, and this has become a sentinel for how we—as a society—live our lives.  So when The Navigator tells me it’s time to take out the garbage, I eagerly take advantage of this event to 1) see if I can find anything worthy of The Antiques Roadshow, or 2) gauge what other campers are discarding and why.  It was during one of these refuse runs that I found something that was unexpected—some camper had thrown away a perfectly good LIVE RACCOON!  I’m graveyard dead serious…here’s the video.



At first I wanted it.  I remember Donna Douglas (aka Ellie Mae Clampett) having one of these critters as a pet, and I thought this might be a way to spice up the daily routine around the campsite. I quickly realized that I didn't know where to buy Purina Raccoon Chow (or if they made such a thing), and started to think maybe this was a bad idea.  I instead embarked on a mission to get the raccoon out of the dumpster—saving it from the horrors of the trash compactor scene in the original Star Wars (which was voted most terrifying motion picture scene by every Arkansas native I've ever polled).  

With any animal rescue there is the BIG question: Will the animal appreciate your non-malicious attempts to save it from a perilous fate; or will it view you as a voracious two-legged carnivore and choose to not go down without a fight?  Sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it goes…well…LIKE THIS or (ironically in a dumpster) LIKE THIS.

My first plan was to place one of my leveling planks into the dumpster.  The raccoon could easily walk up the plank and be free.  Voilà!  But the raccoon didn’t do anything except crawl under the plank and use it for better cover.  Now the plank was not only non-effective, but now I was risking having a very useful piece of wood end up in a landfill—or worse, someone else may steal my trash from the dumpster.  This solution had serious flaws.

I then considered arranging the trash inside the dumpster to form a series of steps so that the raccoon could simply walk out.  This could have worked, but unfortunately there was not enough trash…and I didn’t want generate more of what (we're told) threatens nature in an attempt to save nature.  I finally went into the adjacent woods and drug out several long branches to place inside the dumpster.  The lengthy limbs extended beyond the top of the dumpster, providing an escape route for this nocturnal varmint once the sun was low and the coast was clear.  Voilà! (Finally!)

Lunch-time view atop Pinnacle Mountain

A few miles from Maumelle lies Pinnacle Mountain State Park.  This 2,000-acre recreation area sits adjacent to the Arkansas River with views of the eastern ridge of the Ouachita Mountain range.  Pinnacle Mountain is rather shortish as far as mountains go; with a summit elevation of 1,011’  There are miles of trails up and around this fire-ant mound shaped crag.  With the last good hike occurring in Tennessee, we jumped at the chance to log some trail time.  As a warm-up, we decided to ascend via the West Summit Trail.  This trail is only 3/4 mile, so we thought this would be a way to ease back into trekking.   What we failed to realize was that the short trail  had a 700’ elevation gain.  This equated to a 1’ elevation gain for every 5’ hiked.  To give a comparison, the Barr Trail leading to Pikes Peak  has a 1’ elevation gain every 7.8’ hiked.  Although not long, this trail was VERY steep.  The western exposure provided ample warmth on this sunny day, and The Boys were starting to show signs of fatigue near the top.  We pulled off-trail and had lunch while enjoying the million dollar view; then made the gravity-assisted return down the hillside.  Later we circumnavigated Pinnacle Mountain via the Base Trail—a 2.5 mile path that meanders through the natural flora of central Arkansas.  

As the sunset reflected on the bluffs across the Arkansas River, twelve tired legs assembled around an oak campfire.  We were sore, but the good kind of sore.  Another epic day logged.  Another epic day awaits tomorrow.




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