Wildcat Mountain area - unnamed peaks west of Wildcat

Hike Features:

Date:  February 10, 2007
State: Arkansas
County: Perry
Location: Off Highway 9, on FR 179, just off FR 132 (Winona Scenic Drive). 
Length of hike shown:  ~ 4.2 miles
Trail: Mixture of on-trail and off-trail
GPS: 516664.50E  3856035.19N 15S (UTM WGS84) (parking off forest road 179 (just off FR 132))

 24 photos in OHJ Photo Gallery

Reaching Trailhead:    There is a parking lot at the trailhead.     From Little Rock, we drove out Hwy 10 until Williams Junction, then south on Hwy 9.   After a few miles, on a hilltop, there is a dirt road on the right called "Winona Scenic Drive", which is a NFS maintained scenic route (and logging/forestry road).  The official name is FR132.  After a few miles (~ 3.3 miles), there is an intersection, where we turned left.   After just a few feet, on the left, there is a turn in for a small parking lot, with a trailhead sign announcing that we had arrived at Wildcat Mountain Trail.  

Description:  It was a dreary, gray, hazy, heavily overcast day.   We set out with 3 goals in mind: a) to reach a small unnamed peak west of Wildcat Mountain, b) to reach another unnamed peak just to the east of the first one, and c) to check out an unusual collection of standing water down in the valley that I had seen 2 weeks before.   We had hiked in this area on January 28th and, from a distance, I could see a lot of water down in the valley.   I thought it might be a beaver pond and wanted to check it out.  There are 24 photos of this hike in the OHJ photo gallery.

The  hike to the peaks starts from the parking lot of Wildcat Mountain Bike Trail.    We hiked down to the first intersection ('E' on map) and turned left (east).   When we reached the stream, the trail turns right, but we turned left to follow and old, abandoned road.   This road winds up the creek bed, crossing the creek 3 times and eventually ends near the first peak.  The creek here is small but nice and would have a couple of small waterfalls after a big rain.   The road is easy to follow but there are quite a few downed trees.  When the road ended, we headed east, up the hill to the saddle between peak #1 and an unnamed peak to the north.  The saddle is a flat open area with lots of Devil's Walking Sticks.   The 'peak' was obvious from here and is basically a large rock outcrop surrounded by a torturous thicket of vines, interwoven small trees, devil's walking sticks and briars.    The peak would be an easy 5 minute climb if it weren't for the thorny thicket surrounding it.

The top of the peak is flat and wide open, with just a few pines.  The views are great in all directions (see photo gallery).     Great place for lunch.  After lunch we headed down to the saddle between the peak #1 and peak #2 (see map).   Peak #2 is closer to Wildcat Mountain but is also more forested.   The top is a forest of devil's walking sticks, which was an incredible sight!   The south side of this peak is open and treeless, which results in sweeping vistas to the south.   Here the ground is part rock surface and otherwise grass with cactus!   After soaking up the views and hiking over to the east side to look at Wildcat, we headed back down to the saddle (west) and then turned south.  There was no trail and the descent was a bit steep, following two stream beds down the hillside.  After just a few minutes we arrived at another old abandoned road and took it, heading west-south-west.  After 10-15 minutes on this old road, we veered south through the woods to link up with the Wildcat Mountain Trail (east side of the loop).  From there it was easy walking down to another old road, off-trail again now, to the beaver pond area. 

As it turns out, the water was gone.   When we were here 2 weeks ago we probably saw water backed up after recent heavy rains.  By the time we went back, on this hike, it had all drained away.   No beaver dam, no beaver pond.   After a few more minutes on the old road down in the flat-bottom valley ('D' on the map), the old road crossed the west side of the Wildcat Trail loop and we turned right (north) to head back towards the car. 

Notes/cautions:    Overall, this is a 'moderate' hike, just because of the ~ 1000 ft total gain in elevation and the off-trail parts.   I would never consider this hike in summer; its definitely  a winter hike.   The peaks, especially peak #1, are like to be snake-infested in summer and the briars, vines and thorns would probably be nearly impassable.

Hikers:   jc, sb