Shady Lake in Ouachita National Forest, Arkansas

Working full time and going to school full time was wearing me out so I decided that I needed a vacation. I consider myself an outdoorsy person and the boyfriend enjoys camping. I had no idea where to start planning this vacation so it came about by chance. I, somewhat randomly, picked Ouachita (pronounced watch-i-taw) National Forest in Arkansas as our camping destination. Neither of us had been there before, but we agreed that we would drive down there and just "wing it." I called ahead to make sure that there were campsites available and was informed that campsites are on a first come first serve basis. Awesome. This allowed for a more free-flowing sort of trip which is what we wanted. Free-flowing was indeed what we got...


The drive would take about 13 hours so we decided that we would do it all in one shot which would allow us to arrive with just enough daylight left to set up camp and relax for a while before the sun set on our first day there. We left super early in the morning (about 4am) and we made our target arrival time. When we got there we stopped at the Shady Lake ranger station to get our bearings and maybe a better map. It turns out that we had arrived minutes after the ranger station had closed. We peered inside at a dark building and didn't see anyone inside. Just as we were walking away a ranger popped his head out and asked if we needed anything. We told him that we were trying to find Shady Lake to set up camp. Keep in mind that this national forest is HUGE. It stretches over a good chunk of western Arkansas and into Oklahoma. The ranger showed us on the map and advised us of how to pay for our campground at the self service station when we arrived there.

Self service station? That's right. A large part of this national forest is not monitored by the rangers. It is mostly volunteers camping out at the sites to make sure that no one comes and camps there for free. He also advised us that we were allowed to camp anywhere in the forest, for free, as long as it was not on a campsite or on a trail. This is apparently known as primitive camping.

We thanked him and we were on our way. At this point we were confident that we would make it to Shady Lake with enough time to set up camp and get our things in order before the sun set. We turned onto the road to lead us into the forest and it turned out to be a dirt/gravel one lane road. This is not a problem if you're driving a truck or even an SUV, but in my Chevy Cobalt we had to drive very slowly. This elongated our travel time and it took us almost 2 hours to get even close to Shady Lake on the map.

By this time the sun was rapidly descending towards the horizon and it was beginning to drizzle. Not wanting to be caught out in the rain without our tent set up we made an executive decision to stop where we were and "primitive camp" for the first night. Thankfully we were stopped near a picnic area that had outhouses, tables and grill pits. So it wasn't all that primitive, but I was still worried by the fact that we told people we would be at Shady Lake and as it stood right now we were not where we were supposed to be. If we got lost or hurt they would be looking for us in the wrong place.

I was also worried by the signs posted around the picnic area that warned of bears. Wait, bears?! I had done little to no research about the wildlife residing in Ouachita National Forest, but apparently it is a prime location for black bears. Well, as long as they aren't Grizzlies right? What added to my mini freak-out was the fact that the picnic area was surrounded by bear-proof garbage cans. This made me think that bears frequented this area more often than not.

With the sun still setting behind us and the rain picking up we had to get our shelter set up first and foremost. We set up a tarp so that we could then set up the tent without getting soaked while doing it. The tent setup went smoothly and it was finally time to make dinner. Still being cautious of bears I tore through my meal and quickly disposed of the garbage in the bear-proof dumpster. We only unpacked what we needed for the night, because we knew that we would be packing up in the morning to find Shady Lake. Here was our set-up on the first night...

That night I slept with my flashlight right next to my pillow and thoughts of hungry black bears filled my head. The next morning we woke up, made breakfast, packed up and hit the gravel road again. This time since we had plenty of day ahead of us, we weren't in such a rush to find Shady Lake. Even-so it was still difficult and took an additional 2 hours of 15 mph driving. It wasn't all bad though. We were able to make some stops at scenic look-outs for some photo ops along the way.

But at long last we found Shady Lake!

Phew. We set up our tent at our campsite, paid the fee and began exploring the area. Our campsite was right next to the lake and when I say that I mean it quite literally. A few feet away, down a slight hill, there was the lake. There was a wooden bench at the bottom of the hill to sit and enjoy the view. There was also a fishing dock, ping pong tables, a swimming site and showers/flushing toilets. It was really nice and we were the only people there. To clarify, Shady Lake is split into 3 campgrounds: A, B and C. We were on campground A while the volunteer monitoring Shady Lake was on campground C which was a short distance away. It seems that not many people, outside of locals, know about Ouachita National Forest. Even the volunteer was impressed that we were from Chicago and had somehow discovered Shady Lake. The volunteer advised us that we could harvest and dead wood that was on the ground and use it for firewood. We thanked her and she headed back to her campsite. That was pretty much the extent of our human contact for the rest of the trip. This is a photo of our campsite at Shady Lake...

We spent the rest of this day exploring our area and relaxing. As I was sitting on the bench down by the lake I noticed two turtles on a log. For some reason these turtles began to fascinate me. One would plop into the water and another would come up from the lake to take its place. As the day wore on more and more turtles occupied the log to soak up some sun. It became a conveyor belt of turtles plopping into the water and then moving forward to let another turtle take its place. At one point there were 10 turtles on this log! I had so much fun watching them...

Besides taking note of the turtles I also spotted some wild onions growing around our campsite. I don't recommend eating anything that you see growing wild unless you're 100000% sure you know what it is. Also with onions it is pretty easy to tell by the smell and I had no doubt in my mind that these were top-setting onions (also known as Egyptian Walking Onions). We had pasta making supplies with us for dinner that night so I picked some wild onions to throw into the sauce. It was an awesome experience to use the natural resources around me and it felt great!

As we were making/eating our dinner the sky became cloudy and it started to rain. We had checked the weather before we left and knew that it might rain on this day, but being out of cell phone range we had no way to check the current radar. (My sister would tell me later that the radar was all red and purple where we were camping and that my mom was freaking out.)

We have to backtrack a little bit here, because I neglected to mention the little side-story that our ranger buddy told us on the first day. When we told him that we were looking for the Shady Lake campground, he casually mentioned to us that Albert Pike (right next to Shady Lake) was closed, because 12 people died in a flash flood a few years ago and due to pending litigation they have yet to re-open that campground. Twelve people died in a flash flood, right next to where I am camping and it's insanely thunder-storming right now AND I'm next to a lake. No big deal.

I tried to remain calm, but I panicked a little bit. The boyfriend gave me a hard time joking that tomorrow I will be worried about a flash flood of bears. In all seriousness this was a pretty bad storm that lasted for about an hour and it did rain enough to raise the level of the lake even though the lake drains over a dam on the other side. The winds were also strong enough to blow our tent around a bit. However, we remained dry and finished our dinner in the tent and there were no bear related incidents.

The next day we decided to do some hiking. We picked a trail that circled the lake and took us past the dam that drained it. We packed lunch and plenty of water/snacks and we were on our way. We took our time enjoying the scenery along the way. At the beginning of our hike it was a little overcast, but it quickly cleared up into a nice sunny day.

At one spot along the trail we were able to look back over the lake towards our campsite...

Then we came to the dam and it was awesome! The sound of the rushing water was very calming and the way it constantly provided drainage for the lake was amazing.

We decided to hike a little further and then eat our lunch. We checked the map and noticed that it takes us across the creek after the dam. We followed the trail expecting to see some sort of bridge leading us across. Then we lost the trail. Had we missed the bridge? How were we supposed to cross this rushing creek? Well we finally came to the conclusion that due to the storm the previous night, the water level was higher than it normally would be and we figured that the map was telling us to wade across the creek. At a lower water level this would have been fine, but after the storm with the dam furiously draining water a short ways upstream? I was a little nervous. We looked across the creek and sure enough we saw the white sign that indicates the trail picks up on the other side. We did, in fact, have to wade across the creek. The boyfriend somewhat tricked me into crossing. He led the way and claimed that we would just take a few steps out to practice and "test the waters." Before I knew it I was halfway across. At this point I realized that there was no going back. I had to keep going across. I made it without any incident and at the other side the boyfriend jokingly awarded me my Creek Crossing Certificate. "Okay, now it's time for lunch" I said. This is the area of the creek that we crossed...

We ate, enjoyed the sounds of the dam and dangled our feet in the cool creek before we moved on. The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful, compared to the creek crossing. We saw ducks in the lake, we encountered a snake along the path and we saw some interesting bugs flying around. At the end of the hike, where the trail joins back up with the campgrounds, we came to a bridge that was also flooded from the storm. It was only covered by a few inches of water and was nothing like crossing the creek! I gladly took of my shoes and strolled through the cool water.

After the hike we decided to rest and relax. No bear fears, no flash flood fears, just some good old relaxing. The boyfriend took to his hammock and I took to my lakeside bench for some turtle watching...

The last night was great. We grilled some steaks, hung out on the fishing dock and even broke out the telescope (this was the first night that was clear enough) to check out the stars. The next morning I was sad to be leaving. Shady Lake (and Ouachita National Forest) had been much more exciting that I anticipated. I will definitely return as there are miles and miles of forest that are yet to be traveled by me. All in all it was a relaxing and fun trip despite a few hiccups along the way. I was able to take a much needed break from work/school and get back to nature and just enjoy the view. I love that lakeside bench on our campsite and I could sit there forever...

Like I said above, I will definitely travel back to Ouachita National Forest and the boyfriend is excited to do so as well. There are still miles and miles of trails to explore and other campgrounds to venture out to as well. I got very lucky that my random pick for our vacation turned out so well.