First Day Hikes offer fresh air, facts

New Year’s Day walkers visit site of 19th-century sawmill

Steve Chyrchel (right), interpretive naturalist at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, talks about the park’s tree species during a nature hike Friday on the Sinking Stream Trail. Two guided hikes at Hobbs on New Year’s Day were part of the First Day Hikes program at several Arkansas state parks. First Day Hikes offered the opportunity to start the new year in an active and healthy way.
Steve Chyrchel (right), interpretive naturalist at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, talks about the park’s tree species during a nature hike Friday on the Sinking Stream Trail. Two guided hikes at Hobbs on New Year’s Day were part of the First Day Hikes program at several Arkansas state parks. First Day Hikes offered the opportunity to start the new year in an active and healthy way.

Dozens of people across Arkansas celebrated the first day of 2016 outdoors, enjoying nature during First Day Hike events at several state parks.

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The Sentinel-Record

Steve Donahou, a park interpreter for Lake Catherine State Park southeast of Hot Springs, leads a group down Fall Branch Trail on a First Day Hike on Friday.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette

Steve Chyrchel (left) starts a nature hike Friday on the Sinking Stream Trail.

First Day Hikes originated more than 20 years ago at the Blue Hills Reservation, a state park in Milton, Mass. The Jan. 1 events aim to promote healthy lifestyles throughout the year and the year-round recreation that can be experienced in state parks.

First Day Hikes

First Day Hikes originated more than 20 years ago at the Blue Hills Reservation, a state park in Milton, Mass. The initiative targeted Jan. 1 to promote both healthy lifestyles throughout the year and the year-round recreation that can be experienced in state parks.

Hobbs State Park has 35 miles of trails, 24 of which are multi-use.

Source: Hobbs State Park — Conservation Area

"Think of it as the start of a new and healthy lifestyle for the whole family," said Priscilla Geigis, president of the National Association of State Parks.

First Day Hikes were set for multiple state parks in Arkansas, including Petit Jean State Park, Pinnacle Mountain State Park near Little Rock, and Lake Catherine and Lake Ouachita state parks near Hot Springs.

At Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area in Northwest Arkansas, nearly 50 people took part in hikes Friday.

"We want people to get out and get exercise," said Steve Chyrchel, an interpretive naturalist at the park. "People spend too much time around asphalt and concrete and in their cubicles at work."

Chyrchel led 17 people in a half-mile guided nature hike on Sinking Stream Trail at 10 a.m. Offering guided tours on New Year's Day gives people a reason to get outside and enjoy nature, despite the cold weather, he said.

"It's different," Chyrchel said of a nature hike in winter.

There aren't leaves on trees or wildflowers blooming, he said. So instead, trees are identified by their bark. Other plants that stay green all year, like Christmas ferns, stand out.

It was a chilly 36 degrees and sunny outside when the hike ended around 11 a.m. It warmed up to about 43 degrees when the park's second guided hike of the day started at 2 p.m.

The second hike took participants through Van Winkle Hollow, a 19th-century sawmill community.

Hobbs State Park volunteers Jim and Diane Gately divided the group of more than 30 into two smaller groups for the half-mile hike through the area, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

"This was a booming community," Diane Gately told her group. "Peter Van Winkle was an entrepreneur who was full of ideas and able to develop new concepts, expand his business continuously and rapidly."

Van Winkle established the first steam-driven sawmill in the Ozarks in 1858. Some limestone blocks give shape to where it once stood on the far end of where a community once thrived. A circular gravel trail leads visitors around the hollow.

In the middle is where Van Winkle built a house for his family in 1862.

"It was quite elaborate for that time, and it was right in the middle of everything that was happening," Diane Gately said.

Van Winkle had 12 children and 18 slaves, Gately said. The family fled to Texas as tensions grew during the Civil War.

Confederate soldiers traveled through the site during their retreat from the Battle of Pea Ridge to the Boston Mountains. Van Winkle's home was damaged during the war, but he rebuilt it when his family returned, Gately said.

Community leaders urged Van Winkle to rebuild the mill after the war, because there was much need for lumber during the Reconstruction period, Gately said. Roads were built so equipment could be taken into the area and lumber could be transported out.

"It was a tremendous undertaking," she said.

Van Winkle moved to Fayetteville in 1880 and died in Rogers in 1882. His son-in-law inherited the sawmill property and closed the mill in 1890. It saw different owners until Roscoe Hobbs bought it in 1928. His wish was that the property would be kept intact as much as possible, Gately said. It became a state park in 1979.

Steve and Barbara Browning of Stamford, Conn., went on the Van Winkle Hollow hike Friday with their friends Hugh and Frances Wagner of Garfield. It was the first time any of them had walked the half-mile trail.

They said they didn't know there was a sawmill like that in Arkansas.

"It's incredible that they could haul that kind of equipment back there and get it running," Steven Browning said. "I had no idea."

Hugh Wagner said he's always had an interest in the Van Winkle family, but he learned about their use of slaves to run the sawmill while on the hike.

"I'm going to go home and investigate more of the African-American influence, because I found that fascinating," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Sentinel-Record and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 01/02/2016

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