|
Ouachita National Recreation Trail
Skip the trail descriptions and jump to the topo maps NEW: The entire trail is now on Google Earth. See below. Background. The Ouachita National Recreation Trail is 223 miles stretching from Talimena State Park in Oklahoma to Pinnacle Mountain State Park on the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas. The trail stays in the Ouachita National Forest from Oklahoma to Arkansas Highway 9. From there to the end, the trail passes through lands under varied ownership and is administered by Pinnacle Mountain State Park. While there are maps of the Ouachita Trail, none exist that have the terrain detail available from the USGS 1:24,000 topographic maps and created from GPS tracks. Though I have been intending to hike the trail and produce the same quality maps as the Ozark Highland Trail series, Buffalo River Trail series and the numerous other hike on this website, I have not gotten much past the first 50 miles in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, there have been several intrepid hikers who have tracked all or some of the trail and posted those tracks on the Internet. The following are my preliminary maps, based on all the data I could find. The tracks of the trail are a composite of that data. See the bottom of the webpage for credits. The Maps. The 29 topos are a little further down the page. They begin at Talimena State Park and end at Pinnacle Mountain. The maps are free downloads that are formatted to print at scale (1:24,000) on 11 x 17 paper. Click on the image to get to the full size map and right click to download. It is free! Thay are also available printed in color on weather proof, Rite in the Rain, 11 x 17 paper. If you are interested, send me an email (see bottom of page for price and details). The base maps are a composite of USGS 7.5 minute topos. The OT is shown in blue. Mileage markers where the data was available are provided. The text to the left of the maps show the approximate mileage of the trail and the Friends of the Ouachita Trail (FoOT) trail sections. Some of the maps have been enhanced and updated using aerial photos and satellite imagery. Entire OT on Google Earth. The map on the right is the portal to the entire OT on Google Earth. You will see the OT rendered in blue and assorted waypoints and mile markers. Since this is a Google Earth API, the 3D element is enabled. WARNING. It is a 2.5 mb file and may take a while to download. Entire OT in GPX Format.This link is for the a GPX file of the entire trail, suitable for your GPS. That said, it is one continuous track and has many waypoints meaning it will likely exceed the capacity of your GPS. Load it into your computer using you GPS mapping software and split it to meet the capacity of your saved tracks on your GPS model. You may need to delete some of the waypoints. Free Detailed Trail Description Available On Line. John (JD) Smith of Frisco, Texas has created a two volume trail description of the west half of the trail. Volume 1 goes from Tamimena State Park (Map 1) to Upper Kiamichi Trailhead at the Oklahoma-Arkansas state line (Map 7). Volume 2 describes the trail from Upper Kiamich to Big Brushy Creek Recreation Area (Map 13). Improving the maps. While these maps are far better than anything else available, there is always room for improvement. If you have tracks of any section of the trail that you want to share, email me. I am missing some of the mile marker locations, shelter locations and spur trail tracks, the campsite site locations of the designated campsites on the east side of Lake Maumelle and there are many section that could use better data. Also, some of the intersecting trails in Arkansas are very rough.
|
Credits: The following are the source of the data used for the maps. The final tracks, however, are a composite and my own interpretation or interpellation of the data so if you find errors while making your own track, it is not their fault.
To Buy Map: Color weatherproof versions (11x17) of each map are available for $5 each plus S&H by emailing Charlie@OuachitaMaps.com. A 20% discount is available if you want the entire set. That is $4.00 per sheet or $127 total, delivered by UPS in the US. Expensive? Yes, but, there are 29 maps and it is much cheaper than the $300+ for the full set of USGS topos, that doesn't even have the trail. |
Weatherproof Topographic Maps at
OuachitaMaps.com - Hiking Trails of the Ouachitas and Ozarks Home |
