You know sometimes Little Rock is right over the top as far as outdoor stuff. It never really gets the recognition that other cities and towns in Arkansas get as being a great outdoor town. That surprises me particularly looking at what is available in the metro area. Here is a short list:
- Over 60 miles of mountain bike trails. Yes that’s right, over 60! In North Little Rock you have the trails at Camp Robinson, Burns Park, Emerald Point and the Pfieffer Loop. Then in Little Rock you have Allsop Park and Boyle Park. I’ve also heard from a little bird that trails are in the works at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.
- Speaking of cycling, we’ve got the Big Dam Bridge and the river trail that are excellent rides for road cyclists. A little to the west of town you can ride the Lake Maumelle Loop, a hilly rid of about 36 miles with many options and then to the east is the Scott/England Loop which gives you 30+ miles of flat country to ride. Although the town is not totally bike friendly they did recently add bike carriers to the buses and I see more and more cyclists commuting to work, we are getting there.
- We also have numerous parks including Pinnacle Mountain State Park where the eastern terminus of the 235 mile Ouachita trail is. Over 10 miles of hiking trails in the park including the steepest trail in the state (East Summit Trail). The views from the top of Pinnacle are awesome!
- Little Rock is also home to many outdoor sporting events like The Little Rock Marathon, Raid the Rock Adventure Race, the Big Dam Bridge 100 and the Mud Run.
- How about water you say? Well we do have the Arkansas River splitting North Little Rock and Little Rock. Two of the upstream feeds are the Little Maumelle and Big Maumelle rivers. These are excellent floats in both canoe and recreational kayak.
What made me think of all this? Well the last point about water. Saturday morning and we have nothing planned. Other plans in the afternoon and evening keep us from traveling far so what to do. A quick float on the Big Maumelle did the trick. Here are some photos:
The Girls with Pinnacle Mountain in the background
