This past weekend, the Hubs and I went on our first backpacking trip to the Ouachita "Mountains" in Southeastern Oklahoma. The weather was a bit of a bummer, but when does the weather here not disappoint in one way or another? It's either too hot, too cold, too rainy, too dry. There's either a tornado headed your way or a blizzard. What it lacks in weather conditions, it makes up for in scenery. With the flowers and trees in bloom, there is so much peaceful beauty there. We are already planning our next hike. Who's with us?!

We ended up hiking a loop between 7.5 and 8 miles with an elevation gain of 1,100 feet. We thought we had been preparing our legs, shoulders and backs, but wow! We are still sore! I'm not sure anything can prepare you for a climb that steep with 20 pounds of gear on your back. You just have to go out there and get it done! Now that we have a better idea of mileage and elevation gain, we can plan better for our next hike.

Despite Corey's doubt in my ability to carry a heavy camera on top of all of my other gear, I wanted to lug my Nikon DSLR with me because I knew after it rained the creeks and springs would be flowing. Boy, I'm glad I did! I got some pretty awesome shots:




For lunch, we made some tea and PB&J flatbread sandwiches. Who needs a campfire when these awesome little stoves are $8 at Academy?



Not long after lunch, we began our climb up Winding Stair Mountain (the tallest mountain in the background):


We had to stop for a rest and a snack about halfway up. That's when we found this random meadow:


Before too long, we reached the top and met the 200-mile Ouachita National Recreation Trail.





We hiked it for 1.2 miles and made our way back to Cedar Lake where it was time to set up camp and make dinner!



We can't wait for our next hiking adventure (hopefully in the next month or so, but the weekends on our calendars are filling up fast!), and maybe we can get some of our friends to go with us!