Ouachita anxiety relief

The last time I visited Hot Springs over a rainy New Year’s weekend, people were at a premium. The bathhouses of the national park were mostly empty, as were the restaurants and bars. 

The weekend after Christmas 2025 was far different environment. 

Thanks to balmy winter days, one could have mistaken it for a summer day along Central Avenue. The summer-like temperatures probably helped, just as Christmas on Thursday probably encouraged a day or weekend trip to Hot Springs. 

But there was no warning. The hills around Hot Springs hid the crowds. Central is just a narrow street between hills. Were I headed somewhere other than the national park, I would have stood a chance, but I quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen. 

After accidentally turning onto the route for the hilltop observation tower – a good spot to visit when the crowds are not oppressive - I made a U-turn and began searching for an exit. The bathhouses looked great. But I couldn’t contend with this crowd. Hot Springs has a bicentennial looming in 2032, marking its preservation as a federal reserve under President Andrew Jackson, the first land protected in such fashion and a precursor to the national parks, which Hot Springs became in 1921. 

History and hot water would wait for another trip. I sped west through many layers of Hot Springs, through historic housing blocks to strip malls until I eventually reached town’s end and rolled into the Ouachita National Forest. 

Then came many miles of nothing, a relief at the rush of humanity that descended upon the Hot Springs historic district. I often went many miles without another car or town. 

Ouachita is the French version of Washita or Wichita, the Indian term for good hunting grounds repeated across Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. 

These mountains are rich with old-growth forest thanks to the presence of tree species not usually logged. More than 800,000 acres could be old-growth, making it one of the largest reserves in the lower 48. Only a veto by Calvin Coolidge prevented this forest from becoming a national park – as an national forest, there’s a still a serenity to these mountains, Towns like Mount Ida and Y City had a few stores and a gas station. 

I might live at an altitude more than twice the height of these mountains, but that did not take away from their majesty. Mount Magazine, a flat-topped mountain that at 2,753 marks Arkansas’ highest point, has been carved out of the national forest as a state park. They stand tall enough to possess ecosystems usually found further north, and numerous species not found anywhere else. 

Some scenic routes don’t deliver on the scenery or deliver too much, but the Ouachita National Forest provided the right amount. These environs made me want to return when not on a spring back to Colorado. 

By sunset I had descended into the Arkansas River Valley, the first feeling of home, despite all of Oklahoma lying ahead of me. The Arkansas runs dry at points in Kansas and gets replenished from reservoirs and tributaries, but it emerges from the Rocky Mountains 40 miles from home. 

At Fort Smith the Arkansas runs wide, its surface broken by forested islands before cutting through its namesake state and meeting the Mississippi on the eastern border. 

Nearby rise the last peaks of the Ouachita heading into southeastern Oklahoma, the state line not change their stature. 

Nearing Fort Smith