Mission Incomplete: Bell Mountain/Ozark Trail
Have you ever set a goal or had certain expectations and things just didn’t turn out as planned? It happens to me all the time to be honest, but I’ve been lucky for the most part in relation to Caroline and mine’s hiking adventures. Even when we just wing it, we still have met or exceeded our goal. Unfortunately, our latest hiking adventure just didn’t quite pan out the way I’d thought.
Caroline informed me Saturday evening that she was taking Hunter, her son, to Ironton at 6:15 a.m. on Sunday to meet up with his fishing partner. We had been discussing whether or not we were going to hike because we both wanted to be home by that afternoon. So I started doing my research of hikes near Ironton that we hadn’t don’t yet.
If you’ve been following us, you know that we’ve been section hiking the Ozark Trail. So naturally, I went to the Ozark Trail Association’s website to research. One of their featured trails on “Trip Planner” was part of the Bell Mountain Wilderness Trail and was a little over 8 miles in length. After trying to decipher some maps, it sounded perfect to me. It was near Ironton, a good length, the beginning and end trailheads were only 10 minutes apart so we could park a car at each end, we hadn’t done Bell Mountain, and it was a section of the Ozark Trail we hadn’t completed! Perfect!!
Or maybe not so perfect. Things just weren’t working out from the beginning. My mom and sister decided to come (which is more than fine), but Lindsey and I started the morning off running late, so I didn’t get to stop for breakfast. Then my mom couldn’t find our meeting location, so that set us back even more. (It was my fault, I didn’t give the best directions.) If we had been planning on a sunrise hike, we didn’t make it. Once we got everybody at the same place and in the right vehicles we headed off. According to the OTA website, the trail was easier to start at the Northern trailhead and walk South. So we left one vehicle at the Bell Mountain/Ozark Trailhead off of A Hwy.
We had to backtrack back from whence we came to find our starting point. However, the whole time I was being questioned whether we were going in the right direction and whether we were actually going to be going North to South. We found the second trailhead off of county road sixty something (4 I believe). And all this was done with my tank closing in on the BIG, RED “E”!! In the middle of nowhere…. I was in such a hurry to get to the trail I forgot to get gas!!
Our journey through the Bell Mountain Wilderness began. The weather was pretty cool and since it had been raining the majority of the week, it was pretty soggy. But the trail was nice and even without a lot of ups and downs. However, we were still questioning which direction we were going and what trail we were walking exactly. We didn’t see any OT trail markers, or any markers for that matter! Several miles down the trail we finally checked our location on the All Trails App and figured out we were actually on the Bell Mountain trail. But I was wrong in believing that this section of Bell Mountain was actually part of the Ozark Trail.
Basically what we did was enter the Bell Mountain Trail from the North and didn’t complete the loop. At the Southern edge of the trail, instead of looping back around we kept straight which put us on the Ozark Trail for a few miles before getting to our other vehicle.
The trail itself was just a nice walk in the woods. There wasn’t too much elevation gain. One or two good steady climbs up and around Bell Mountain. There were a few places that spur trails take off that take you to some overlooks. I’ve heard a lot of great comments about the beauty of Bell Mountain, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see it this day. It was so overcast and foggy we couldn’t see more than a 100 yards in front of us! We could see the shadows of other mountains across the way, but it never cleared up enough for a good view. So we continued our trek through the woods.
Several times we still stopped to check our maps and make sure we were going towards our cars. It seemed my mom was a little skeptical about whether we knew where we were or not. But we were pretty certain: Certain that we were only going to do half of the Bell Mountain Trail and a very small section of the Ozark Trail.
When you get to the intersection where the Bell Mountain trail loops back around, we hung to the left. We ran into a few different groups of backpackers who were on their way back to their vehicles I would assume after spending the weekend on the mountain.
Eventually we got to the intersection of the Bell Mountain and Ozark Trails. The next few miles we were on the Ozark Trail heading downhill back to the cars. One thing I’ve noticed about the Ozark Trail is its ruggedness. Bell Mountain was a nice “smooth” dirt trail covered in soft leaves. However, once we got on the Ozark Trail the trail becomes very rocky and somewhat treacherous. It’s no easy feat to walk on the “ankle-breaker” rocks that cover the trail every step. And at this particular section of the Ozark Trail, you basically get to walk down Bell Mountain towards your vehicle. If you’ve done much hiking, you would know that hiking downhill is sometimes as bad or worse as walking uphill!! My mom kept questioning how much further we had. At this point we’d walked almost 8 miles through the woods, with little scenery, and with the terrain becoming rougher, she was done! And my mom doesn’t get cranky too often on the trail. I honestly think she may have been a bit “HANGRY!”
After 9 miles we finally came to the end of our trail, to our second car. Thank goodness!! I love hiking with a passion, but today just wasn’t our day. Besides being confused about our exact location and the fog hiding all the views, I realize that other than hiking 9 miles in the woods, I didn’t accomplish any of my goals. My OCD kicked in just a bit and I’m more than a little disappointed to say I did not actually “complete” any trail that day. Since we only did one side of the Bell Mountain loop, I feel like I’m going to have to go back and complete it in its entirety (plus I want to see those views everybody talks about) and since we were only on the Ozark Trail for a few miles, I don’t feel like that can be marked as a “completed” section either.
So stay tuned as we work these trails again in our future. But if you’re not really interested in checking trails off your “to-do” list, then this route would be a good way to see some of the Bell Mountain views and experience the Ozark Trail. It only took us a little over 3 hours to complete.
When we got back on the road, my first stop was a gas station!! Thankfully, I had just enough gas to make it back.
Finally we made our way to The Abbey or better known as the Arcadia Valley Academy. It’s an old Abbey that has been turned into a restaurant and wedding venue. It’s really quite a site and the food is delicious!! We’ve been going for their amazing soup and salad bar. Then we always order a sandwich which we end up getting to go for later. This particular day I got the “Monte Cristo.” Yum! Yum! Is all I’m going to say about it!
Even though we didn’t “check” any items off our hiking to-do list and the weather wasn’t really in our favor, we still had fun being with one another and experiencing something new. Caroline said that you can probably tell what kind of a hike we had by the number of pictures we’ve taken. Neither of us took too many because, let’s be honest, nobody really cares to see pictures of us and some fog!! LOL
If you have any suggestions for our next trip in that area, please let us know. We are hoping Round 2 meets our expectations more closely.
Also, I did discover a new App called “Relive.” It connects to a number of other apps to track your hike as well as pinpoints where you stop and what pictures you took there. One should definitely check it out!
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