Roundtop

 

The day after Christmas, we left for the family cabin in NW Arkansas for a few days of vacation spent mostly hiking. Since it was pretty cold the entire time we were there, our hikes were mostly shorter hikes spaced out by periods of time spent in the cabin reading, eating or playing games. Our first short hike was to the mountain seen above during warmer days called Roundtop. 

It has two loop trails that encircle the mountain on various natural benches formed by harder stone so we ended up walking around it twice. On the upper bench, there were some view points and below is one of them guarded by a snag of a tree that I found interesting.


The mountain is infamous as the site of a plane crash 84 years ago. I looked it up on some of my online newspaper sites to find first hand information but it was pretty sparse for such an event. Below is a section of an article that also detailed two other area disasters that resulted in the loss of life. Basically, it sounds like weather played a large part in the crash.


Below is the crash site found on the lower loop trail around the mountain. Not much remains anymore besides the large rock with an arrangement of scrap metals and a permanently mounted plaque marking it. 


Comments

  1. It's interesting that the co-pilot was from Zephyrhills, Fla. (Which they misspelled in the article.) That's a little town not far from where I grew up, north of Tampa. Our high school football team used to play Z-hills regularly.

    Looks like a great place for hiking. And yes, that snag of a tree is picturesque!

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  2. That's a lovely setting with the tree, fence and view.

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    1. I thought so too. Had I done a panoramic view, one could probably see for maybe 240 degrees out on the point but I just loved the old snag of a tree and settled for taking a picture of it and the view immediately beyond.

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  3. That is a nice way to spend the holidays - away from the hustle and bustle of too many things to do and just spend quality time together. Do you play "Catan" with the family? It is a really fun and competitive building game for 4.

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    1. I think we have or had a version of that game at one point though I'm not sure it has ever been played. Our girls are six years apart in age and have never seemed to get into games like that.

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  4. I love the tree photo! Very striking. It sounds like an excellent get away with a little bit of hiking, reading and hanging out.

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  5. And the Navy hitchhiker probably on his way home has no name in the newspaper article. What a sad accident. I like your tree also and I would have photographed it also! Hope you had a great vacation and Happy New Year!

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    1. I hadn't noticed that but am glad you pointed it out. According to a closeup photo of the memorial plaque, he was GM2 Francis J. Russell.

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  6. I love the tree photo. Interesting about the plane crash, too.

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    1. Of course the site was covered in leaves this time of year so there wasn't a lot of evidence of a plane crash. I would have thought it would have been more obvious than it was.

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  7. Interesting. I used to live in Newton County, but this was never something I got to see. Of course, I've rarely seen the "sights" in any place I've lived and probably missed out on a number of interesting things along the way.

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    1. Wow, small world indeed! I can understand as I've been going down to Newton County for 40 years now and just got around to seeing this trail. There are a lot of things to see in the area.

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  8. Nice view and it appears to be a lovely mountain that may be a little haunted?

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    1. I didn't see any spirits there, as apparitions or in bottles.

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  9. Good grief! That's so sad. What a terrible tragedy.

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