Pinnacle Mountain - West Summit Trail

West Summit Trail / Pinnacle Mountain - March 14th, 2015

Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Big Rock, AR

Distance: 2.5 mi / 4 km (Round Trip)

Elevation Gain: 600 ft. / 182.9 m.

Highest Elevation: 1,011 ft. / 308.2 m.

Dogs: Allowed

Difficulty: Easy

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The East and West summit trails at Pinnacle Mountain State park are two of the most popular hikes in the state of Arkansas.  Both trails take you to the top of Pinnacle Mountain rises to 1,011 feet above sea level placing its summit several hundred feet above anything else as far as the eye can see.  Even though a mountain which is 1,011 ft. tall in Arkansas translates to a foothill at best in other parts of the country, in a state where the highest point, Mt. Magazine, sits at just under 3,000 ft., Pinnacle Mountain most definitely qualifies as a mountain.

Allison and I traveled to Arkansas in March to visit my family and friends.  My buddy from college, Jeff, and his wife Tina were awesome enough to pick us up from the airport, let us stay at their house for a couple of days and also through a mini college reunion party.  Upon our arrival, I told Jeff all about our plans to hike the PCT and also a little about our training schedule.  I informed him that we would be walking early every morning for training purposes.  This led to a discussion and decision to get up before dawn the next morning to hike Pinnacle mountain.  I was really excited to take Allison on one of Arkansas' best short hikes and show her the awesome 360 degree view from the top.

On the night of the party my other college buddy, Favorite (my nickname for him), or Precious (my grandma's nickname for him) or Ryan (his mother's name for him), his girlfriend, Courtney, Allison and I decided we would for sure do the West Summit Trail at sunrise the next morning.  Jeff also said he might come but since he is notoriously bad at waking up (once during a ski trip we carried him out of the hotel room we were staying in in his sleeping bag and left him on the porch and he still didn't wake up) I took that with a grain of salt, and sure enough he didn't end up going.  

The next morning Favorite showed up super promptly, to the minute we had discussed, and the four of us loaded up in the dark for the 20 minute ride to the park.  At the park we were greeted by some minor flooding and couple of cones with yellow Police tape across them saying not to cross.  Since it was obvious that the park had just run out of their normal caution tape and that this was not actually a crime scene, we jumped the tape, found a little bridge to get across the swollen stream, and started up the mountain.  

The the first mile or so of the ascent is really easy and not very steep so we tore up it in just a few short minutes.  Allison and I noted that we felt a little like super heroes during this section.  This was a result of having lived 3,400 ft. higher than this for over 6 months combined with training with backpacks at that elevation and above almost everyday in the recent past for our PCT training.  The last quarter mile of the hike is a very very steep scramble up a boulder field.  It had been raining in AR off and on almost the entire time since we landed and stopped raining heavily sometime during the night.  Needless to say, some parts of this boulder field can be treacherous under the best conditions, so we were less than happy to be doing this section with moisture on the ground.  Luckily we took it nice and slow and carefully made our way to the top without incident.  

At the top we were treated with a 360 view of the entire area surrounding the mountain as far as the eye could see.  Some of the more notable features being, Lake Maumelle and the Arkansas River.  We were in a bit of a time crunch as we were meeting my Mom and friend, Elizabeth, for lunch and we had to pack and get ready, so we quickly enjoyed the view, took a bunch of pictures and started our descent.  We weren't really looking forward to this part since going down difficult terrain is always a ton harder and more dangerous than going up.  Luckily, Favorite found an alternate path very early in the descent that allowed us to bypass the boulder field.  After we got past the first really steep 1/4 mile of the descent, we really started haulin' and made it down in about half the time it had taken to go up.