Cabin Fever, Oklahoma

Hiking and hot-tubbing in the Kiamichi Mountains

The leaves are crunching underfoot and the ice isn't about to thaw out any time soon. It's cold. Very cold. Or perhaps it's just colder than I expected one of America's southern states to be in January. Still, despite the weather, it is beautiful.

I'm currently half way up a huge pine-and-hickory strewn hill in the middle of the Ouachita National Forest in McCurtain County, southeast Oklahoma. I've come here, along with my wife, my sister-in-law and her fiance, to hole up in a remote cabin for a few days and to do some hiking. It's fair to say we're off the beaten track here. Although the nearest town, Broken Bow, has a population of around 4,000, there isn't really much there a couple of fast food joints and seemingly endless shops selling fishing tackle and bait. This is the America of huntin', shootin', fishin' and acres and acres of beautiful forested hills.

The Ouachita National Forest (pronounced wash-i-tah, the French appropriation of a Native American word meaning 'good hunting ground') is the oldest and largest in the southern U.S. and covers nearly 1.8 million acres. You can still find arrowheads scattered in the soil today and Native Americans make up almost 20% of the local population. Of course, the story of how they got here in the first place is tragic. The Choctaw Tribe were 'relocated' from their ancient Mississippi homeland to Indian Territory in the 1830 Trail of Tears. Many suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation en route, and many died. Most of the Choctaws settled on a 6.8 million acre estate which they called the Choctaw Nation in Arkansas, while some settled in the rural hilly Kiamichi Mountains here, where they started farms. 

Today, neighbouring Arkansas has by far the larger share of the Ouachita Forest, but the portion in Oklahoma is incredible and will satisfy even the most ardent outdoor enthusiast. There's fly fishing, kayaking, horseriding, endless mountain biking trails, boating, the gorgeous Kiamichi Mountains, the splendour of the 22-mile-long Broken Bow lake and Beavers Bend State Park. And there's that....

To view the full article register with WorldWide today or login.