Maintaining: The Ozark Highland Trail Association
By Trevor Spencer
The Designer
Tim Ernst drives past Gregory Park, a small park in the heart of Fayetteville, and he has a flashback. At 67, he’s reminded of his childhood and the memories exploring this small park’s trails. He remembers that, as a kid in the early ‘60s, his neighborhood on Woolsey Avenue expanded with the city’s overtake of the forest. “That park off behind the McDonalds became my extended playground,” he said. “Back then, there wasn’t as many bike trails and all there. Most of the trails I’d go on there were made by my older brothers’ and their friends’ foot traffic.” Tim remembers the independence and freedom he experienced as a kid exploring the forest around his neighborhood. He remembers that, at age seven, he’d go squirrel and deer hunting with his father in the Ozarks, but that he was “more interested in bushwhacking, hiking my way through the forest than hunting.” And, he remembers that in the summers, he’d be outside till dark exploring the woodland outskirts of town, where civilization was quickly advancing on his playground.
Tim remembers his senior year of high school when his mom gave him The High Adventure of Eric Ryback, a story of a teen backpacker trekking from Canada to Mexico. It was the first book he had ever finished cover to cover. It captivated him so intensely, that he was asked to showcase his book report in front of the entire student body. “I think that was the first book report I ever finished too,” he said. “I wasn’t a very good student.” He remembers how in Gregory Park, there was one small clearing marked by a large oak tree with a hole that he and his friends would take small treasures to hide. Tim wonders if that tree is still there, with all its nostalgia. So, he continues his way to the veterinarian, drops off his dog, parks his car behind the McDonalds, and heads in to Gregory Park for a trek into the past. And, right where he left it, that old tree is there with the same hole, although no treasures inside.
Tim’s entire life is like this, because it all revolves around the outdoors, around trails, and around making his own trails, like his brothers. One trail, in particular, runs through the center: The Ozark Highland Trail. In 1981, Tim’s love of the Northwest Arkansas outdoors led him to start an organization dedicated to designing and creating a trail through the Ozark National Forest.
The Maintainer
At several times in the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, Adam slashes through the thick wilderness of Fire Rock, or Woods Gap, or at the highwater bypass in the Hurricane Creek Wilderness. Whichever fear-invoking forest name he types into his GPS, Adam has to travel deep into the Ozark wilderness of Northwest Arkansas, hours from any major highway. His heavy boots trek through the rocky forest floor. He proudly wears a thick black and gray beard, like an archetype of a classic Arkie outdoorsman.
He stomps into the overgrowth, as Mother Nature is always trying to take back this corridor. Girded with his orange-colored helmet, safety glasses, and large backpack of land-clearing tools, he uses hedge trimmers or a saw to cut through the thick clusters of vines, briars, branches, and tree trunks that obscures the hiking corridor of the trail he’s trying to maintain. If the vines and thorns get thick enough, he’ll pull out one of his favorite tools: the Rambo. Shaped like a weedeater, its propelling blade cuts quickly through the brush. The front of his helmet shines a proud emblem with three trees at the center and around which reads “Ozark Highland Trail Association.”
https://ozarkhighlandstrail.com/trail/
This is the official logo of the organization.
Adam joined the board of the non-profit in July of 2022. He had been a part of the volunteer maintenance crew for years. Then, at one meeting this past summer, Adam explains, “I went from not being involved, other than maintenance with OHTA, to being the vice president of the Ozark Highland Trail Association in about an hour.” “Thrown up the ladder, then?” I asked. “No, no, I want to be a leader in this,” he said. “I put myself up the ladder.” Adam loves the outdoors. He’s worked as an outdoor gear salesman for over ten years in Fayetteville. He says he loves the idea of making a trail for people coming from all over to see the natural wonders of Northwest Arkansas.
Photo by OHTA, 2-25-23. Adam Higinbothom and other volunteers are headed into Hurricane Creek.
Today, the Ozark Highland Trail is a nearly 250-mile hiking trail running from North-Central Arkansas, into the Ozark Nation Forest, and down to Lake Fort Smith. The OHT is considered one of the roughly twenty trails in the U.S. for “thru-hiking,” according to the Backpacker website. “Thru-hiking” is a form of hiking in which backpackers walk long distances on established trails longer than 100 miles.
Adam explains that maintaining and trail construction are grueling, tedious work that some people don’t appreciate. “This is not landscaping,” Adam said. “This is the natural world…Hiking trails don’t just maintain themselves. There’s not just a perfectly placed corridor for us all to hike through.”
The OHTA’s 96 volunteers, and especially its board members like Adam, work tirelessly to give others a beautiful trail. Some longtime members, like its founder Tim Ernst, have logged more than 350,000 hours on the trail to help maintain it. But, even with the continual maintaining in the fall and spring and also the goal of expanding the trail to connect with the Ozark Trail in Southern Missouri, this large non-profit project relies solely on fundraising and volunteers.
In early November of 2022, several local businessmen and women and recreation leaders met as part of an Axios event to discuss the recreation economy in Northwest Arkansas. Guests included Heritage and Tourism’s Outdoor Recreation director Katherine Andrews, Laneshift CEO Ryan Hale, University of Arkansas’ Greenhouse Outdoor Recreation Program director Phil Shellhammer, and others. They found that outdoor recreation accounts for 2.4% of the state’s GDP, creates nearly 40,000 jobs in Arkansas, and rose by 23% last year. But, with more than $137 million of that coming from biking alone in Northwest Arkansas, that is where the focus remains.
To Adam, the outdoors is being ignored or, even, neglected by business people. He said, “If you just let greedy people rule, where the dollar is number one, there won’t be much more of this.” “This” refers to the untouched beauty of Northwest Arkansas. Adam explains that the goal of maintaining and trail creation is to change as little as possible in nature, so hikers can adore the wonders of the Natural State.
Adam explains that despite the trail’s size and growing legacy, hiking is not a very lucrative business. He says that, first, the trails are on public land, and, second, the equipment, even for thru-hiking, is less expensive than many other outdoor hobbies like climbing or biking. And, even as the OHTA’s newly appointed vice president, Adam himself gets paid the same as the other volunteers. “I know people who make a living by working for a non-profit,” he said. “This [The Ozark Highland Trail Association] is not one of them. The only money we get is for the tools.”
On January 24, 2023, Governor Sanders of Arkansas signed an executive order for the Natural State Initiative. In it, one major goal emerged: to establish Arkansas as a leader in the outdoor recreation economy. The initiative says, “Outdoor recreation is a powerful economic engine and a gateway to improved quality of life and positive health outcomes for all Arkansans.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t change the OHTA’s funding or volunteer situation.
“She [Governor Sanders] doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” said Adam. “She doesn’t really care,” he says in reference to trail creation and forest activities. The OHTA doesn’t receive any funding by the state or national government. Even the money that the OHTA receives for tools is from fundraising, which is usually by selling OHTA t-shirts and hats. Adams says the only help the association receives from the government is chainsaw certifications, sign posts, and land grants from the National Forest Service. For Adam, the actual trail maintenance is not done for the dollar or even with the help of government programs. These sort of government initiatives put no stake in the OHTA’s dream of expanding the trail. For any work to be done, it must be from volunteers and proud stewards of the Northwest Arkansas outdoors.
What Started the OHTA: Volunteerism
The 250-mile Ozark Highland Trail didn’t exist in the early ‘70s. But, for Tim Ernst, who had seen his brothers make their own trails and bushwhacked his way through sections of the Ozark National Forest while hunting with his dad, it was there. So, after reading of the teen Ryback’s adventure in high school, Tim packed up his supplies, his waterproof tent, his two pairs of cotton socks, and he headed into the Ozark National Forrest. Young Tim Ernst traversed the some 160-mile forest alone. He completed it in five days.
Into the 1970s, there was a growing national interest in recreation, but many parks had limited ways to build and maintain the trails. That limit was found in Arkansas.
In 1977, the federal movement of trail creation finally reached Tim, as the U.S. Forest Service started building the Ozark Highland Trail. So, Ernst joined the U.S. Forest Service the summer he got out of high school, where he helped build and photograph the process. But, as the form of recreation grew in the U.S., there were fewer ways for the federal government to allocate time and resources to maintaining trail construction. So, when President Reagan cut the budget of the Forest Service in 1981, Ernst’s trail had ended short.
Yet, later that year, Tim attended a meeting in Fayetteville for the Arkansas Trails Council. He sat among a worried group of young men and women pondering how to finish the trail that Reagan had taken away. Tim and others pitched an idea for a group of volunteers to complete the trail. “It would be a trail designed by hikers, built by hikers, and maintained by hikers,” Ernst said. And, in spite of the lack of governmental help, the trail grew to its now 250-mile length, all on the backs of men and women willing to volunteer.
What Maintains the OHTA: Stewardship
Chris Adams travels hours from Missouri State University, where he is now a Biomedical Science professor, to help maintain the OHT. He didn’t always love hiking or trails. In the early 2000’s, Chris first began to get outdoors. After quitting his job as a high school baseball coach, he had a lot of time on his hands. On one occasion, he went on a hike through the Ozark Highland Trail running through the mountains of Northwest Arkansas. He was there near the Buffalo River with the association’s maintenance coordinator, Roy Senyard. With every branch that would get in their way, Roy would take his time to pull them down from blocking any future hikers. Part of Roy’s job was to clear a corridor in his volunteer section of the trail, so others could enjoy the nature of Northwest Arkansas. This routine vigilance gripped Chris. This care and stewardship of the outdoors captivated him. So, Chris adopted a section of the OHT to maintain by himself, and he eventually took Roy’s position as maintenance coordinator, which Chris currently holds.
Photos taken by Chris Adams
Chris claims that maintaining the trail is a strange addiction. “Oh, it’s nice because you can see how you yourself have improved the trail,” he said. “You see a product you’ve made better for other people to enjoy and there’s a pride in that.” This winter, Chris has carried Roy’s vigilance and stewardship for the trail. He’s travelled nine weekends in a row to help maintain.
For Adam Higinbothom, it is much the same. For all the Saturdays he could be off his job and with his family, he forfeits them to be on the trail with other volunteers making a way path for others to enjoy. I asked him why he does it, despite the lack of money. I asked him why he makes these kinds of sacrifices without much reward as an outdoorsman or as a family man. He lifted up his dark sunglasses and looked around the parking lot of Pack Rat for a moment. Then he turned to me. “The outdoor industry has paid for my bills for 15 years,” he said. “I want to give something back.”
Yet, despite their countless hours on the weekends, both Chris and Adam know that the greatest threat is not the lack of attention on hiking or funding from the government. The greatest threat to Tim Ernst’s dream is running out of stewards like themselves. Chris says that volunteers are the OHTA’s identity. But, this is in jeopardy, as Adam reports that the OHTA is seeing less young people join. In fact, Adam is the youngest member of the board at 41.
Adam says, “It’s hard to get new membership with younger generations wanting to sit at home and play video games or watch what we do from YouTube.” Adam says that there’s going to be less young people getting in to organizations like this in 20 years because of the culture. He describes that culture as, “There’s now a lot less people younger than that look at trail maintenance and say ‘how can I give back to the outdoors?’ but they’re saying ‘what am I getting out of it?’”
Chris understands the trouble they’re in, as well. “We’ve added a goal to our website…promotion,” he said. “We now have a lot of social medias working to that end.” Adam, in fact, is the head of the social media division of the organization. “The people that do want to give back, we have to give them a way to find us,” Adam said. “The organization was asking 70-something year-old people to make Instagram posts, and I just couldn’t have that, so I took over.” In all this, Adam highlights a key theme: stewardship for the outdoors must be taught. He says it is how he’ll raise his daughter.
The Future of The Trail
At 68, Tim works as a wilderness photographer, as he creates albums of scenic waterfalls and mountaintops in Arkansas. Although he’s no longer on the board of the OHTA, they reach forward into the Ozark Trail, into his own vision. And, Tim continues to do his own part. He said, “You know, I still maintain a small, adopted section of the trail near the Buffalo, about 2 miles long.”
To maintain this trail that people from all over the world come to enjoy, it takes people like Chris and Tim and Adam that are willing to volunteer out of a motivation of stewardship. When posed the question on how the OHTA would continue in the face of a business-minded culture, a similar level of government aid, and a dwindling number of young maintainers, Tim repeated to me the same line from 1981: “It’s always going to have to be a trail designed by hikers, built by hikers, and maintained by hikers.”