Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis. This is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. It’s just all about living long and loving life.

Today we’re back at Kessler Mountain Regional Park. Why did we come back so soon after the last episode, when I walked the circumference of the park? Perimeter of the park is more appropriate, I suppose — it’s not circular.

Well, another month has gone by, and I wanted to check and see if the Razorback Greenway was open. And as I expected, it’s not. So it’s been at least five months they’ve been working on it. But you know what? My past experience with road construction is that it can go on forever. Sometimes it takes two years. This is the City of Fayetteville, so I don’t know — but it’s close.

But I had a backup plan, because it just so happens that here at Kessler Mountain it’s famous for trails, specifically bike trails. And interesting, because we had an episode on e-bikes, and here’s a sign that says exactly what kind of e-bikes are allowed on this trail. So yeah, my Plan B was to walk the Saddle Up Trail — and that’s what I’m on. There’s a nice creek as we’re starting out. I went to the parking lot closest to the trailhead, but to my surprise there isn’t really a walkway straight there. You don’t have a path straight across from the trailhead to the parking lot. So your options are to take the sidewalk, or go into a ditch with high grass and such. Especially since we’ve had some rain recently, I decided to go with the sidewalk route. And so I had to walk a little bit farther.

The Saddle Up Trail here at Kessler Mountain in southwest Fayetteville, Arkansas, is really a bigger perimeter of the park. A portion of the trail goes onto the park perimeter, which I walked the last time I was here. But here’s a significant portion of the trail — in fact, most of it — that goes through the woods. And that’s where I am right now. It’s not completely isolated like I was on the Old Wire Road Trail of Tears, which is amazing, at Pea Ridge National Military Park — because I can hear the traffic. It is fairly close to Interstate 49.

And this is an easy trail, at least for bikes. It’s a green trail. And it is a little muddy, not too bad. We’ve had some rain. I had some challenges trying to do yard work on Monday. It’s now Wednesday. It took several more battery charges than it normally does because of the grass that was wet even at almost noon.

Overcast today, but no rain is expected — 15% chance. And this trail is wide enough for a bicycle to pass a hiker, so that’s good — especially if they do the right thing and notify you that they’re coming up behind you.

And it’s mid-morning. Maybe not quite mid-morning. I did take the week off. It’s going to be the last week off for several months. I’ve kind of delayed, for various reasons, my vacation, and then I haven’t really gone anywhere, as you probably haven’t seen in the episodes from the state parks in the last year or so. I’ve been staying close to home, so good things about that: you save money, and you get to do some ordinary things at different times. I could go to the gym during the less crowded times — although I haven’t done that. I can walk on these trails. And one of my favorites is to go to the grocery store at 10 a.m. Probably won’t get back in time to do that today, but I need to go today — or yeah, it won’t be as convenient because I’ll have to change back.

So, fashion report: I’m actually wearing my hoodie today. Sixty degrees out. And it’s kind of unusual for early May. But it’s been cooler the last few days, which I’m fine with. So I got the hoodie on.

Now, choosing shoes for today — I didn’t know if I was going to be walking on a hard trail or a soft trail, as they say: concrete of the Razorback Greenway, or the more uneven terrain of Saddle Up Trail. So boots or walking shoes. I chose the walking shoes, and then I figured I would do a little more ankle warm-up to protect my ankles from any surprises. Didn’t really do that, but I did a little bit.

There’s a bench by the side of the trail here, and it’s not really a view — you kind of see the mountain through the trees. You can hear the train off in the distance in addition to the traffic here. And this trail is very well maintained. And some of the people who do that are Ozark Off-Road Cyclists. And there was an episode a couple months ago, probably — I say probably because my release schedule’s not always clear in my head — but we did have an interview, and that was a good one. We did a series on cycling in Northwest Arkansas. It was the only interview that I could get, but a good one.

So Ozark Off-Road Cyclists — OORC — does a lot of maintenance on these trails. I’ve seen a couple of wooden bridges that they probably built, and plenty of gravel here, and some stone crossings when the water levels are high. So far the walking shoes I chose will be just fine, I think. This trail is not terribly rough.

Medical department: after seeing my cardiologist for a checkup-type thing a few weeks ago, he ordered an echocardiogram and a calcium score. An echocardiogram is a sonogram of your heart. So they lube you up and put this sonic thing that I guess makes noise you can’t hear, and it bounces back, and they see pictures of your heart. That was last week. This week — in fact today, this morning — I had what’s called a calcium score, which is a CT scan of your heart. During the echo, they actually injected me with an agent to help them see things better. I was kind of expecting that with this, but I didn’t get it.

One of the things about the calcium score is they’re looking at your heart. The faster your heart beats, the less quality they get out of the images. And so they ask you to refrain from nicotine and caffeine for 12 hours. Well, before I realized it this morning, I had a little caffeine — my protein drink. It’s part of my two-shakes-a-day diet. It has coffee in it, and I had that. And then I also had a sip of regular coffee. So fortunately, my heart rate is naturally pretty low. I’m exercising right now… it can be in the 50s while I’m sitting down not doing anything, and it was in the 60s there. She said that was fine. So we got that done. And the calcium score — the echo was basically unchanged from my last echo, which is good.

The calcium score measures calcium deposits in your heart — or in your arteries, maybe. And this is a predictor of potential blockage in the future, or reduced capacity in the future. So that’s a good thing to do. And not covered by insurance. And I think I remember having something similar a long time ago, back when I was with Dr. Bicak, before he retired, and I asked him about tests that would be good to do that are not on the usual list. And I believe that was one of them that he mentioned.

So there is some elevation in this trail. It goes up and down. It is on a mountain, after all. But it’s not terrible. Like I said, it’s considered an easy trail, so not too bad.

So that’s the medical department. Hydration department: I unwisely had the thought that since it was so cool, I wouldn’t sweat that much — but that’s not really true. I think you probably sweat the same amount. It’s just that it evaporates quicker in the cold. I know I’m sweating right now under this hoodie, even when it’s 60 degrees. So… it’s a nice stone path here. I’m still surrounded by trees.

I’ve talked a little bit about the history of this park and area, and it apparently was pretty wild before they put the trails in, so you’ve got some older trees here. And I’m coming up on a plaque. We’ll see what it says.

Kessler Mountain Regional Park — Forest Communities. Support plant and animal diversity. The most common habitat on Kessler Mountain is the oak–hickory forest and woodland. A forest is a habitat dominated by trees with a closed canopy that shades the layers beneath. A woodland is a habitat with an open canopy that allows penetrating sunlight to create a robust layer of vegetation beneath. This is both a forest and a woodland. Both are home to a community of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Mature Ozark forests generally have five layers. These layers allow wildlife to settle into pockets of habitat within the overall structure of a healthy forest.

Unfortunately, non-native invasive plants and trees — such as bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense), and tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) — threaten to overtake our Ozark forest. Did you know? Cleaning boots, shoes, and bike tires before entering the forest and staying on designated trails helps prevent the spread of invasive plants.

The uppermost layer is the overstory or canopy, which can include oak, hickory, and other trees from 60 to over 100 feet tall. The understory includes shade-tolerant trees that grow up to 60 feet tall, including flowering dogwood, eastern redbud, and canopy trees that have not yet reached overstory height. The shrub layer includes saplings, shrubs, and vines that grow three to 15 feet tall. The herbaceous layer includes wildflowers, ferns, sedges, and shade-tolerant grasses. Last, we walk on a forest floor blanketed with decaying leaves, twigs, fallen trees, animal scat, moss, and other organic matter.

Black bears (Ursus americanus) prefer undisturbed forests with dense understory where they can avoid detection and feast on grasses, berries, flowering plants, and insects, and they will scavenge for carrion. They den in tree cavities or under rock outcroppings. A bear may sometimes venture into populated areas and raid bird feeders, garbage cans, and beehives.

Barred owls (Strix varia) live in large mature forests. They roost in the tree canopy by day, sometimes making odd sounds, and hunt rodents and other small mammals at night. They nest in tree cavities and give the classic call: who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?

Three-toed box turtles (Terrapene carolina triunguis) prefer large tracts of undisturbed woodland or forest with ample cover. They make their home among fallen logs and decaying leaves on the forest floor, where they eat fungi, insects, worms, berries, and flowers.

And there you go. Right in the middle of the trail, there’s a little in-depth scientific information. So I don’t know — if I were on a mountain bike, this would be pretty challenging for me, I think. But if I were on an e-bike, I might just be able to make it. I don’t know; never been on an e-bike before. I haven’t been on a bicycle in a really long time. I can now see the park down below — the baseball fields and such, all the big lights, so they can have night games.

And I’ve got a nice wooden bridge here to go across a creek bed, which is dry — as dry as anything is today. There’s some interesting curved trees, and they’re on the side of the mountain. The only thing I can think of is they’re curved to get more sun, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen trees curved like that so much. Still, I’ve not seen anybody on the trail. Wind’s picking up.

The Saddle Up Trail is only two miles long, but it’s two miles of elevation changes, so I would not expect to go that far in the same amount of time as I do on most of the Razorback Greenway. Some of the parts in Bentonville are kind of hilly on the Greenway. But the actual distance is pretty much the same as if I had been able to start at mile zero and walk the first mile of the Greenway and back.

And here is a trail that branches off going up. And, okay, fortunately there’s a sign here. It tells me Saddle Up Trail continues to my right. Escalator — this is the other one. It’s a green trail, but the name indicates it’s going to be an uphill climb, although presumably you have to come down if you go up. Kind of like the song “Spinning Wheel.” I don’t know if it’s Billy Preston who did that. I’m not sure. “Spinning Wheel” — look it up. What goes up must come down. Spinning wheel got to go round.

That area is kind of a ditch. Interesting noises — almost machine-like. Maybe a creaking tree about to come down or something. Looks like we’re mostly downhill from here. Getting closer to the park too. And the trail goes around the outer north edge of the trail up to where the Razorback Greenway attaches.

There are three trailheads on the map. This is, I believe, number two. So a trailhead is where you would expect signs to tell you what’s going on on the trail. Now, I didn’t see a sign that said who was allowed on here other than the e-bike sign. So it didn’t specifically say hikers are allowed or cyclists are allowed, except for the e-bike sign. But I have been told that most of the trails here are multi-use, meaning that pretty much anyone can use them — hikers, bikers, runners.

And this trail is Last Call, and it is a blue trail. So… and here is this map here. It’s just like the trail map that you can get online. And fortunately there’s a familiar wooden post as I go down here for the Saddle Up Trail. And I’m doing that, and I’m coming to what looks like some kind of composite blacktop-type trail with gravel on it. And I’m just going to go to my left. I don’t know where it goes off to the right, but just based on what I saw of where this goes on the map, I’m assuming it goes down this way and around the rest of the park. Very nicely made-up lawns — I mean, this is a nice park. Very nice.

One of the things I like to do when I have time off is what people without a nine-to-five job get to do — like go to the gym during off hours, which I haven’t done. And one of my favorites: going to the grocery store at 10 a.m. Might not be able to do that today. I came down here at the tail end of rush hour, and I’ll be heading back — should go a little quicker — but we’ll be back by 10 o’clock. I may just do that tomorrow. I’ve got something planned for tonight. I might take the rest of the day to do other things like reading or working on this podcast.

This looks like an actual road here. Saddle Up trailhead. It says back this way. Saddle Up trailhead. Can I walk down there? I think I’m going to see rather than walk up the other way. It looks like this may be a maintenance building. I know that the trailhead was supposed to be at this parking lot up here. I believe it’s this one on the outer side. And I do see a sign — not necessarily a trailhead sign, but about the same. You know, there’s no post, but there’s a big sign that is at several points around the park. And it looks like I’m going down right there. So I think this is technically — this may be the trailhead that I was looking at on the map. Seems to be maybe a discrepancy between the map and the signs on the trail. Looked like a temporary sign, actually.

And this is an actual road that I’m coming to — I mean, for vehicles. And it’s got a gate. And yeah, there’s the standard park rules. Yeah, so I’m going to head over here to the sidewalk. And I mean, you know, walking shoes are good for this part of the trail, so not a bad choice. It’s hybrid. Call it a hybrid trail.

So I’m still not sure. I always forget which exit to go off of and all that. If you’re in the area, it’s exit 60 — takes you to Cato Springs Road. I still try to use my navigation in my Ford F-150, but this park did not exist when that thing — when that database — was last updated, which was nine years ago. So, you know, got to take it with a grain of salt. It does. It will take me to Kessler Mountain Road, which is not the road into the park. So… got to go another. Oh, it’s either farther or not quite as far, but you can tell because there’s actually a sign that says Kessler Mountain Park.

And we’re walking by the Kessler Baseball complex, City of Fayetteville. So when I got here, the front parking lot had only one vehicle, and the parking lot where I walked to the trailhead had none other than my own. And this back parking lot has two vehicles. So somebody may be walking here or working here. I don’t know. Some birds making some noise.

Speaking of out-of-date navigation: I am a licensed private pilot from many years ago, and I’m trying to get back into it. And a lot has changed in the last 30 years. There’s all kinds of additional avionics that come in there now. If you don’t have your up-to-date database, you can’t fly instrument on some airplanes. This is interesting.

And here — this is a couple of Fayetteville Traverse. I think we’re actually on that right now as a subtrail coexisting with Saddle Up. And here’s a guy on a bike. Howdy. He’s headed up the vehicle road, wherever that goes.

So interesting changes and stuff I’m going to have to learn. I mean, it’s all like familiar technology now — GPS and such, things like that. But everything’s… they’re computer screens, and airplanes that have very little other than computer screens. They do all their communication and navigation and checking of airspeed and attitude and all those things you have to do when you’re flying. It’s all on the screen.

I used to suggest that you carry a flashlight, and I actually still have the flashlight that I used when I was flying, believe it or not. So it could be like 30, 35 years old. It’s actually in the truck right now. I know because it’s got a shoestring attached to it that I can put around my neck. So if your lights go out in the cockpit, you can still see the gauges by looking at them with a flashlight. Obviously not the case with a computer screen. If that goes out, it’s out. I think they may have some backup gauges on there, but it’d be interesting. I’ve never had that happen to me. But flying the airplane just by feel, of course, would be terrible if you’re in instrument conditions and can’t actually see outside — I can’t see the horizon to know. Because what happens is your body adjusts to whatever attitude you’re in. So if you’re in a 30-degree turn, it doesn’t feel any different than flying straight and level. The only reference you have is your gauges or outside.

Enough aviation talk, but that’s kind of part of my happiness now — kind of what’s motivating me is the possibility of getting back into that.

Coming up upon the closed entrance to the Razorback Greenway. And I just realized I’m not as close as I thought I was to the truck, because it’s on the other side of the park and not by the playground where I usually park. Windy, windy, windy. This part of the Saddle Up Trail looks exactly like the Razorback Greenway — wide concrete with a yellow stripe down the middle. Bicycle repair station. And there it is: the post, the mile marker zero post. Fortunately, hopefully, we’ll be able to go down that someday and document the first mile of the Razorback Greenway. Not today, though.

There’s a nice little pond over here. I didn’t notice that before. Surprise there’s not somebody out here mowing today, because it looks like it’s a full-time job. Coming up on the playground, which looks like it has an eagle statue on top of it. Maybe that’s to keep birds away, I don’t know. Or other critters. This is the center line — maybe a marker for some utility there. Slight incline here.

Pretty good workout today, I think — two miles up and down the Saddle Up Trail, and another trail in Northwest Arkansas that we have been to. This first time to be here at Saddle Up, and it’s turning out to be a nice day. Sun’s kind of peeking through. You can see the green Kessler Mountain. And now we’re going to level off. Got some rough wooden fencing down there. I don’t know why. Maybe left over from an older time. Who knows? Tree right in the middle of it. Twenty-five mile-an-hour speed limit around the park seems kind of high. I think that’s for cars, not for bicycles, but still seems kind of high for a park.

Well, it’s been good to have you along as we explore the Saddle Up Trail at Kessler Mountain Regional Park in southwest Fayetteville, Arkansas. I guess it’s time to shut her down. So if you have the fever, keep it burning. If you don’t, catch the fever. And I’ll talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.

References

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