Well, Kim and I had another ultramarathon vacation last weekend. We were down in eastern Oklahoma for the Ouachita Switchbacks 50K race. While Kim and her fellow runners were performing insane feats of athleticism on very steep, rocky trails, I wandered around a little with my camera, looking for anything visually-interesting in the dormant forests of the Ouachita Mountains. No one cheered for me.

The race took place on the Ouachita Switchbacks Running Trail, though I think they tacked on a little extra mileage to get to a 50 kilometer total distance. (It feels wrong to say “mileage” in that context. Is there a word that does the same work but in metric? Kilometerage? Probably not. We’ll just go with “length”. They added a little length to the route.)

Anyway, the trail winds through the Ouachita National Forest, full of shortleaf pine, a variety of oak species, black bears (supposedly, though I didn’t see any), and – last weekend – a bunch of crazy trail runners. Kim and I had come down once before for this race a few years ago, but snow and cold weather had made part of the trail inaccessible and they shortened the race to 25 kilometers. This time, Kim got to run the full distance. Lucky her.

Most of the morning was dark and overcast (and cold) but the sky brightened a little around noon and I took advantage of the better light. Here are some of the scenes I photographed between stops at aid stations to be supportive to my athlete wife.

I griped good-naturedly to Kim that there was nothing but trees and rocks to see, but of course that wasn’t really true. There was, however, a lot of brown. That meant that anything green really stood out and caught my eye. Mosses, ferns, and pine needles, especially. I was drawn to those green patches and spent a lot of time photographing them.

I don’t really know what healthy woodlands look like in that part of the world, but the trees seemed to be growing pretty close together in many places and there didn’t seem to be much on the ground besides needles and leaves. I saw very few herbaceous plants, though maybe they were there and just buried under last fall’s oak leaf drop? I’m guessing the site could use some healthy fire, but I need to be careful applying my prairie sensibilities to other ecosystems.

There was a lot of fungus growing on downed logs and dead trees. It all looked the same to me, but my expertise on fungus wouldn’t fill a thimble, so who knows? I used it as foreground for photos and didn’t sweat too much about identification.

I saw some small trees that I thought were ironwood (Ostrya virginiana) because they were holding their leaves through the winter like that species does in Nebraska oak woodlands. When I examined them up close, though, they definitely weren’t ironwood and I thought they looked more like maples. Kim, after she was done running, said she thought they were oaks, and once she said that, I was sure she was right (and not just because she’s my wife).

Now, there’s a species called the maple-leaf oak (Quercus acerifolia) that is endemic to the area. The fact that I saw an oak that I first thought was a maple makes me wonder if I was actually seeing maple-leaf oaks, but after some online reading, I’m very skeptical. There are only a few populations of the species in the world, so I’m guessing maybe I was just looking at dried leaves of black oak.

Winter tree identification in the mountains of Oklahoma is not something this Nebraska prairie boy is adept at. Any help from people more local to the Ouachitas?

Kim finished the race before dark, which was no easy feat, given the distance, terrain, and the fact that she trains in east-central Nebraska, where hills are scarce and not nearly as steep as the Ouachitas. She was very tired. I was too, of course. It takes a lot of energy to walk slowly around the forest looking for mosses and acorns. We were both glad to retreat to the nearby cabin to eat and sleep before driving all the way home the following day.

As I always do in forested hills or mountains, I yearned for clear views of the horizon while walking around the Ouachitas. There were a few scenic overlooks where I got brief reprieves from my mild claustrophobic feelings, but they were few and far between. Still, it’s a really beautiful landscape down there and I’m sure it’s even more lovely during the growing season when there’s a lot more green. I hope to get back there sometime and explore some more.