Museum’s Trails For Hikes, Bikes, to Link Art, Flora

By Tracie Dungan

Posted: November 5, 2011 at noon

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BENTONVILLE — Unusual dogwoods, sculptures, remnants of a never-built railroad and the natural architecture within forests are themes hikers and cyclists will be able to explore on 3.5 miles of trails surrounding the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

The 7-acre campus nestled on 120 forested acres in downtown Bentonville will feature six themed trails meant to show museumgoers the connection between nature and art, museum officials said.

The trails differ in style, width and surface material. Many of the hard-surface trails will accommodate both bicyclists and pedestrians, while the soft-surface trails are open only to foot traffic.

Trained certified master gardeners will lead guided tours, teaching visitors about the site’s flora.

“All the trails will be available for any individual or group to walk on their own,” said Scott Eccleston, Crystal Bridges director of grounds and trails.

“The tour is just an added benefit, to be able to walk the trails and understand the intersection of art and nature,” he said.

The Crystal Bridges Trail and Overlook, which features a platform to view the museum construction site, has been open to the public since July 2009. The overlook will be dismantled but the trail will remain open, Eccleston said. Its trail head begins at Compton Gardens and snakes about 1 1/4 miles to the north-northeast.

The museum and the Bentonville-Bella Vista Trailblazers donated the Crystal Bridges Trail to the city of Bentonville in 2009, museum officials noted.

    ART TRAIL

The first developed tour takes visitors along the Art Trail, which is dotted with outdoor sculptures.

The pieces will include artist James Turrell’s sculpture — sometimes referred to as a “skyspace” — titled The Way of Color. The domelike viewing structure has an opening at the top and LED lighting that affords viewers inside a different perspective on sky watching.

Other sculptures that have been announced for the Art Trail include works from Northwest Arkansas artists such as Pat Musick and George Dombek and New York-based artist Richard Serra.

The 1,700-foot Art Trail is for foot travelers only, despite its concrete surface, Eccleston said.

The second tour the museum is developing, called “The Art of Nature,” is meant to teach visitors how to evaluate the texture, form, space, line, color, value and shape of trees and plant life in winter.

Springtime tours will also be developed.

“We’ll be diving into the cultivars of Crystal Bridges,” Eccleston said. “We have a lot to cover out there.”

New tours will be developed as plantings change to keep the tours fresh, he added.

During a trail-guide training class Eccleston taught in late March, he explained to the two dozen students how the initial tours will be dictated by the winter season.

“Not a lot of leaves then,” he told them. “So, this tour will really focus on bark.”

The students learned that the Iroquois Indians used bark and berries to treat kidney stones; the Pawnee would burn the twigs of the cedar in a ceremony for treatment of nightmares and nervous conditions; and the Cherokee would use oil from the cedar as an ointment for measles and skin diseases.

    DOGWOOD TRAIL

The 4,700-foot Dogwood Trail is the longest of Crystal Bridges’ trails.

The soft-surface, pedestrian-only trail takes visitors through an area thick with the native dogwood variety Cornus florida, Eccleston said.

“It’s an intimate trail that is slow-paced, easy to walk,” he said.

The Dogwood Trail uses a grid material whose spaces are filled with dark-colored sand from a creek near Winslow, Eccleston said.

    ORCHARD TRAIL

Non-native dogwood varieties will be among the blooming trees on the Orchard Trail, a 2,900-foot-long concrete path.

“It’s a multiuse trail just like the Crystal Bridges Trail, so there will be bicycles and pedestrians on it,” he said.

Where local dogwoods bloom for two weeks usually in late March, varieties from places like Georgia and Tennessee will provide a rotating blooming cycle, stretching the window of color.

“We’re shooting for 47 days,” Eccleston said.

“We are going to have some pinks, and some of them they call dusty pink,” he said. “We are using some dogwoods that will have a 6- to 7-inch white flower.”

A dogwood flower actually is the modified leaf called a bract.

“We’re going to have some that will look like you have a white veil of flowers all over the tree,” he said.

Other dogwoods have a vase-like shape, while some will provide gorgeous fall foliage color long after the blooms are off.

The Orchard Trail also features some special older pine trees planted by the late Dr. Neil Compton, a Bentonville physician and naturalist.

    TULIP TREE TRAIL and Crystal Springs Loop

Tulip Tree Trail is a 3,200-foot-long trail of decomposed granite surface that will feel soft to the feet.

On this trail, “They will see what we call the true architecture of the forest,” Eccleston said.

That includes tulip trees and large oaks.

“It is definitely the oldest growth of forest on our property. We have some [oriental] chestnuts, and then the icing on the cake is the beautiful beech trees.”

The tulip tree is native to Arkansas. “It’s a very tall, majestic, upright tree that branches out nicely,” he said.

Looping off the Tulip Tree Trail is the Crystal Springs Loop, which takes visitors to the historic Crystal Springs for which the museum is named, Eccleston said.

   ROCK LEDGE TRAIL

Rock Ledge Trail will tell the story of a railroad that never was. It’s the story of Arkansans from long ago who aspired to achieve something but were beaten to the punch.

“It’s a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit, of trying to produce a railroad that would go from the square of Bentonville to Bella Vista,” he said. “It was back-breaking work back in the late 1800s, of trying to build a railroad.”

The townsfolk and Bentonville investors were never able to finish building it, because Rogers finished its railroad first, Eccleston said, citing the museum staff’s research.

The 2,600-foot, pedestrian-only trail will have a natural surface.

“The trail follows right along these huge, cut-rock walls,” Eccleston said of the unfinished project.

This article was previously published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on April 17, 2011.

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