Nine brave and/or foolhardy TrailBlazers, eager to hit the trails again after 5 weather cancelations, headed for Little Rock to tackle the challenging hike up and down Pinnacle Mountain. The weather turned out to be perfect: sunny and breezy with no predictions for rain until later. 

At the Visitors Center there was a great view of the Arkansas River from the deck. Next we drove to the base of the East Summit Trail where 2 hikers opted to do the entire base trail. Seven BoulderBlazers, under the command of Captain Becky, threw caution to the wind and started trekking up the rocky trail to the summit. About a third of the way up, trails as we know them ceased to exist. At this point everybody started the mad scramble up a large boulder field, climbing, crawling, clawing, clambering, and cussing their way to the top with Yours Truly second-guessing her sanity. At least it wasn’t raining like last year, so the rocks weren’t so slick. Looking back we saw beautiful views in several directions. 

On top there are magnificent panoramic 360-degree views, with standing room only as many hikers were up there enjoying the balmy weather. We walked out on the rocky peninsula on top to catch more views. Then we started down the mountain on the West Summit Trail, which is a gigantic staircase fashioned from rocks and boulders. Some blind young people were making their way up the “staircase” with the assistance of guides. Eventually this becomes a trail down to the picnic area where we met up with our base trail hikers and ate lunch. As we followed the base trail back to East Summit parking lot, we saw early spring flowers such as spring beauty, violets, trout lilies, oxalis and May apples – very encouraging after a too long winter! We even had a chance encounter with a baby copperhead. What a great day!