Category Archives: Hiking

Mount Nebo State Park ~Cabin

cabin

Since we were celebrating our tenth anniversary on this trip, I splurged a bit and got us a cabin instead of tent camping.

I always like to see what I am getting beforehand so I thought I would share what ours looked like.

We got the 1 bedroom model without any bells or whistles.

livingroom

I see this as practice for a tiny house so I am always excited to see how we do in a smaller space!

bedroom

I actually thought the size of the bedroom was nice.

I could see myself living in there.

kitchen

These cabins come fully furnished and the kitchen has everything you need to cook.

kitchen2

I liked the size of the kitchen as well.

Mostly I like the idea of only having to clean this small of a space…

bathroom

livingroom2

The boys slept on the futon.

outside

Most of the cabins we saw had amazing mountain views and outdoor eating spaces!

Ours was set back a bit so I would reccomend cabins 68 or 69 if you want to just sit and watch the sunset from your porch.

cabin

The cabin was clean and exactly what I wanted.

I could not believe the views from the cabins and really liked how close we were to the trails.

I would definitely enjoy staying here again!

Day 1~Mount Nebo State Park, Dardanelle, AR

Mt. Nebo State Park, Dardanelle, Arkansas.

mt.nebo

To celebrate our 10yr anniversary, I rented a Cabin in Mt. Nebo State Park last weekend!

The road to get to the park is steep and very winding.

They do not recommend big trailers.

My boys thought it was a lot of fun, of course.

above

boys

I had been wanting to visit this NW section of Arkansas for a while now and jumped at the chance to stay there.

cabin

I will do a separate post about the cabin but we were really happy with it!

We unloaded our stuff into the cabin so we could get a hike in before the sunset on Friday night.

We chose the  Rim Trail as our first hike since you could access it from our cabin via the Summit Park Trail.

summit

This is still on the Summit Park trail.

running

prettytrail

dropoff

Lovers Leap and the start of the Rim Trail.

ontop

forest

cliff

We went down about halfway on the waterfall trail.

waterfalltrail

On the way back up Nick saw another path so he went on it.

It ended up being a CCC path that met back up with the Rim Trail.

rimtrail2

CCC Trail

rocktrail

rimtrail4

rockwall

It was a little rugged but lots of fun!

fern

This was definitely my favorite hike in the park!

rimtrail5

handsome

Springs

growth

climb

stepup

waterpack

lake

This trail had so many beautiful views!

views

trailsign

The boys do better when a trail is a little challenging so they really liked this one as well!

sunsetpoint

After Sunset Point we hopped back on the Summit Park trail to get back to our cabin.

The loop we did ended up being 3.87 miles.

patio

We hung out at the Cabin for a bit, ate dinner, and headed back to Sunset Point.

sunsettrail

boyssunset

I am glad he brought his camera for some sunset pics.

photographer

sunetpoint2

draw

I brought their nature journals with us so they would have something to do while waiting for the sun to set.

jdraw

sunsetbright

sunset

So beautiful!

sunset2

sunset3

sunset4

On the way back to our cabin it was pretty dark.

We saw a deer walking around below us!

night

The boys also got their first taste of catching Fireflies!

I will share some more of our trip soon!

Keystone Mountain Bike & Hiking Trail ~Keystone Lake, OK

 I asked my husband if we could hike the Keystone trail so I could get new pictures to do an updated blog post.

We visit this trail a couple times a year but recently we have been running it so I do not bring my camera.

It was nice to go through it at a little slower pace last Saturday.

entrance

The parking lot is located across from the Keystone State Park.

I realized when we pulled up that it can be a little hard to find unless you already know what you are looking for so I took a picture of the entrance.

start

Once you pull into the parking lot there are two main entrances to the trail system.

We usually do a loop so it does not really matter which way we go.

There is a map at the travelok.com site to help you out though.

trailhead

This was one of the earlier hikes my husband and I did when we first got married, almost 10yrs ago!

We had gotten turned around a bit and went longer than intended(at least that is what I was told).

I remember thinking I was going to die…

My face was all red(I do not glisten, I sweat, and turn into a tomato) and I was breathing really hard.

My husband barely broke a sweat.

He almost got a rock thrown at him when at the very end he said “Hey! I am starting to sweat!”.

We were at slightly different fitness levels.

marker

I fared better during this hike, it is nice to know I am in better shape than I once was.

There is an easy loop for beginners(green).

It is a stacked loop system with 8miles of trail total with the longest uninterrupted loop(with portions of each loop) being around 5 miles.

nicktrail

turtle

We saw two turtles nesting while out!

I had never seen this before!

turtletrail

rocky

Portions of the trail are really rocky so I try to make sure I have sturdy boots when hiking there.

backpack

rocks

trail4

rock

trailsigns

I think the difficulty rating is geared more towards bikers but I am not one hundred percent sure on that.

The Expert portion does not seem as difficult as others we have done with a similar rating.

tatur

ferns

You can avoid brushing up against foliage for most of the trail so we were able to walk away with few if any ticks.

plants

break

curls

myboys

kentucky

expert

creek

trail5

paintbrush

climb

trail3

waterdrops

We heard a storm coming but thankfully it was not too bad.

I welcome rain while hiking(I was hot!) but I had not brought a bag for my camera and I do not like to hike in a thunderstorm.

trail2

rain

His hair goes curly in the rain.

family

We ended up with over 5 miles!

Nick had been in China for a week so I was pretty happy to be able to get out and hike a longer hike!

I try to stay away from long hikes when I am alone with the boys.

It felt really good to push myself!

If you live in the area you should check out this trail!

It is a great hike!

If you want to find more local hikes I have made it easy for you.

Check out my Oklahoma board on Pinterest, I included the map feature so you can easily find hikes and events I have done or want to do in the area.