Mount Magazine, Arkansas

Welcome back to the highpointing saga! Today, we’re headed back to the south—to the green hills and rolling valleys of the Ozarks, no less. Highpoint number four is that fabled emerald peak (or more of a gentle rise): Mount Magazine! No more east coast business. For now.

Important disclaimer: today’s installment is brought to you by a family vacation co-opted into a highpointing venture. My dad has never said no to a reason to get outside and do something silly or reckless in his entire life. And if a kid suggests it—even, and perhaps especially, an adult kid—the likelihood of said silly business becoming an important item on the to-do list increases exponentially.   

So, let’s talk about Mount Magazine.

What is Mount Magazine?

The highest natural point in the state of Arkansas is Mount Magazine in the lovely Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. At 2,753 feet, Mount Magazine stands above the surrounding valleys like, well. An ammunition magazine, if the French soldiers who saw the plateau and titled it as such are to be believed. This mountain is well-known for being the best spot in the state for technical rock climbing, and one of only two places you can go hang gliding. (Neither of which were on our lists for this trip, lamentably or otherwise.)

While there are several lovely scenic trails around the mountain, the one that leads to the highpoint is fairly short. Unlike many of the longer hikes on our list, it takes only 0.45 miles from the parking lot to reach the top on Signal Hill Trail. Completing the loop brings you to a whopping 1.4 miles on a smooth, mostly flat trail, surrounded by trees the entire time.

Let’s get rolling

Arriving at Mount Magazine involved some slightly unorthodox travel machinations. First, we agreed to make this hike the capstone of a week-long family vacation in Hot Springs, so I drove out to Arkansas nearly a week prior to completing the hike. That drive took nearly eight hours, a straight shot from Austin—wherein I discovered that yes, driving through East Texas still turns me back into an absolutely feral country girl.

The stereo saw a lot of early 2010’s pop country, and I’m not proud of that.

Once in Arkansas, we spent several days lounging lakeside and kayaking Lake Hamilton, before packing up for the final two-hour drive to Mount Magazine. That drive was unexpected challenging—not because of the roads, or the weather, but because I learned that I get carsick when I’m not the one driving on those tiny back roads with lots of twists and turns. NEWS TO ME.

We took AR-10 W to AR-309, but I fully admit I was not paying attention. 

Through the fish tank we go

Finally, we hopped out of the Suffering Bus at the campground, at the start of Signal Hill Trail. It would be short jaunt to the highpoint, and the park staff had advised that the more scenic areas were best found by the lodge, slightly further down the mountain. As such, we planned to split our hike into two parts. First, the highpoint, to achieve Tallest People in the State status, even if only for a glimmering moment, and then second, to a shorter trail along the ridge with the views. With this determined, we set out on Signal Hill Trail with the whole posse of family in tow.

The greenery in the woods we entered immediately lapped up around our ankles thick and wet, the air humid as an aquarium. It doesn’t surprise me that 94 of Arkansas’ native butterfly species can be found on this mountain, with this weather remarkably similar to a greenhouse or botanic garden. While it was only maybe 80 degrees out, the humidity made us all substantially warmer. And stickier.

We followed a winding trail up a smooth slope with only a small incline. The dirt trail wound through the trees, climbing upward at a steady but not challenging pace. The largest obstacle we encountered was a pipe sticking up out of the ground in the center of the trail at one point, which tripped at least one unfortunate member of our adventuring party.

Summit on Mount Magazine: trees

We reached the summit within about 20 minutes, including accounting for time taking a wrong turn and stopping to smell the flowers! Extremely efficient, this highpoint.

The top of Signal Hill proper is perhaps the least visually notable peak on my list so far. The whole thing is covered in trees, and so breaking out onto the flat top of the hill is really just entering a small clearing in a swathe of trees, with the Highpoint Monument and a big sign declaring your victory.

The Highpoint Monument, a flat concrete construction on the ground in the center of the clearing, shows the 6 natural divisions of Arkansas. If you are possessed of too much imagination, you can stand on the Ozark Plateau region like some sort of ridge-backed god, and tower over all the remaining representations of the state with a prickly, humid sort of authority for a moment.

After a brief interlude to climb the sign, sign the summit register, and take the requisite number of increasingly goofy pictures, we proceeded to part two of our Mount Magazine quest.

Man, those mountains sure are blue ridged

A short drive from one parking lot to another took us to the lodge, a popular local tourist destination—and for good reason. This is where the views were hiding! The lodge, built on the mountainside, overlooks the Petit Jean River Valley and Blue Mountain Lake. From the balcony at the back, you can look out over an emerald valley punctuated with a sapphire river leading into an equally-sapphire lake. Here in late spring, the colors of that view sprang out with verdant intensity.

Off in the distance, a low line of blue mountains wrote the horizon line.

It may not have been the highpoint of Mount Magazine, but I think several of us felt that view was the high point of the trip. We hung out at the lodge for a few hours, ate lunch, and took another short hike along the mountain’s edge, following that view. Bear Hollow Trail prioritizes the aesthetics of the hiking experience—boasting at least a quarter mile of trail with valley views before dipping down into the closed greenery of the inner trails again.

After about an hour or so of sticky hiking, we called ourselves successful, took one more peek at the vistas, and packed ourselves up for the cabin again.

Country roads, take me home

We hit the road for the drive back to our cabin with a couple hours of daylight to spare. Chatter in the car skewed very strongly towards kayaking on the lake later that evening—and it struck me how very different this trip was from the last. My last highpoint, Greylock, I reached without speaking to hardly another human soul on the day of the hike. This one, I’ve been listening to backseat banter about swimming and fictional wizards—juxtaposed against a backdrop of adult conversation about Boethius and classical education—for the better part of the day before ever arriving at the hike.

In the backseat on the return journey, I tuned out the noise and watched the scenery pass out the window, feeling again about ten years old. It’s funny how that feeling sticks around. My dad driving, the chatter swelling up and around, and I felt, almost comfortingly, like just another bee in the familial hive again—however briefly. (The very antithesis of Appalachian solitude, really.)

Slightly nauseated backseat reflections

Perhaps I should think of Mount Magazine as an underwhelming installment on a 50-stop journey with bigger and badder trails on it. And in many senses, it is. But there are 50 whole high points on this arbitrary list I’ve assigned myself to accomplish—and that’s a lot of trips. A lot of opportunities to go places and do hikes of varying magnitude, with varying groups of people; from large family outings to all by my lonesome. (There’s range, dahling.)

Each has value of a different sort. Every person I take on one of these trips brings something very different to the table—and some handle the gift that is being included well, and some don’t. My parents and the slew of kids they still have at home treated the opportunity to come with me as a gift. Something we got to share both experiencing and facilitating, and take joy in all of the above equally.

And for that, I am grateful. My life is so different than theirs, that being able to share things with them is a gift I don’t often get, either.

So, no, it’s not thousands of feet up in the air, and no I didn’t risk life and limb to accomplish some physically strenuous monstrosity of a goal that will sit forever in the locked China cabinet of the mind. But I did get to share a part of my life with my parents. And while that’s not a goal I specifically had when I began this project, it’s one I’m delighted to have discovered and will continue to cultivate.

At the end of this project, maybe I’ll have collected 50 different types of experiences, shared with people as varied as the terrain we travel together. Each one unique, each one valuable.

Four down, forty-six to go.