Kisatchie National Forest kicked our butts!!

Let me tell you about our trip to Louisiana’s ONLY National Forest. Kisatchie is a beautiful national forest but boy did it kick our butts!!

Now let me set up the background for you, It’s 2019 and Covid19 hasn't quite put the world on total lockdown. My wife and I had just started to explore hiking. Keep in mind that we live in Louisiana so hiking for us is not the same as hiking in lets say Colorado or even in a desert area of the United States. We had explored a few of the trails around town and found that we really enjoyed our time outdoors. It was even a good source of exercise. Most of the trails we had visited did not have much elevation gain, I mean it’s Louisiana - I don't expect to be climbing mountains.  

    Kisatchie is broken up across 6 areas of Louisiana.

Where is it?

We were excited to visit Louisiana's only national forest. So one weekend we woke up super early and packed some snacks, water, and bug spray and started to drive. Kisatchie National Forest is divided into a bunch of small areas across central Louisiana. We were headed to the Kisatchie Ranger District which is only about hour outside of Alexandria.

What Trail?

The trail I had picked out for us was the Longleaf Vista to Backbone trail and was labeled as a 7-mile loop hike (at the time). My wife and I were super excited about this one, previously we had only done about a 5ish mile loop. We were confident we could tackle this new trail.

Once arriving at the trailhead, we made sure we had our bags packed and bug spray applied then set out. The temperature was not too bad since it was early in the morning, but because we live in Louisiana a cool morning for us is about 68℉.  After a few feet into the hike, it was clear I needed a spider stick. So if you don't know what a spider stick is, it's pretty straightforward, it is a medium-length stick that has some bend to it. You simply use this stick to help know down all the spider webs that lay straight across the trail path.  This will save you from walking face-first into numerous spider webs. Trust me it is worth it!

The first thing that was noticeable about the hike was the amazing fresh pine smell, it is soo much better than the fake stuff.

The Longleaf Vista trail is gorgeous, it has a nice mix of ups and downs. Now if you did not know Louisiana is not known for its “Mountains” but we do have some decent hills. This was also the first time we had a tail that didn't have one big drop at the beginning of the trail and then you climbed back up at the end.

First of many elevation changes that we encountered on the trail!

After a few miles into the trail, you start to climb almost straight up and emerge on the most perfect camping site. It is a small cliff face that opens to show the great expanse of the trees that lay below. I could just imagine the sun rising over the trees with the early morning fog lifting. Now at this time, we had never camped before and I made a note to return to this spot and witness that sunrise I saw in my mind.

We stayed at this spot for some time to rest up and get in some lunch. At this time it was around 11am and I was hungry from the constant ups and downs of the trail.

Soon it was time to get back to the hike. We thought we were about halfway through the hike but that wasn't exactly right. So you see it seems that the app I was using to find the trail said it was only about 7 miles but it turns out that it was actually a lot closer to 10-11 miles. Like I was saying, we thought we were halfway done based on how long we were walking. So after a few more hours, we were starting to run low on water. It was getting hot and we were left wondering how much longer until the trailhead.

THEN IT HAPPENED…

Louisiana is well known for its high humidity and temperatures.  The temperature was about 85 ℉ with about 70% humidity. This makes it feel like it is a lot hotter than just 85 ℉. Combined with the trail had started to open up and the ground turned into a sandy path, making for quite a miserable time.

We ended up running out of water just before we reached the trailhead. We decided to take some time to rest up and try to regain some energy. I would also like to point out that at this time in our hiking adventures we did not have legitimate hiking paints and were simply using jeans which are quite heavy to hike in and do not allow you to cool off much.

Another important note is that the end of the trailhead is not the same point as the start of the trailhead. Once you reach the trailhead you have to hike about another 1.5 miles down the road, yes the actual road, back to the parking lot where the truck was parked.

The realization that we were indeed not done was very draining.  Nonetheless, we started down the tarmac and headed toward the truck.  Thankfully some good Samaritans saw that we were obviously struggling and slowly trudging down the road and offered to drive us back to the parking lot.  Normally I would turn down any offers because I always imagine that I'm going to get picked up by a killer and never be seen again, but we were way too tired to care.  Turns out, the guys that picked us up were indeed good people and brought us back to the parking lot.  Big shout out to those guys you were life savers.  

Overall the trip kicked out butts easily and it definitely turned us off of hiking for a few weeks but we are determined to return and complete the entire trail unassisted! 

So yeah do your research and always double check the length of the trail from multiple sources so you can plan accordingly

TRAIL REVIEW

DIFFICULTY: 7 OF 10

This trail has a good amount of elevation changes and can really catch you off guard if you aren't ready for it, much like us! 

ABILITY TO FIND: 7 OF 10

Google maps will get you very close. There are two parking lots you can use, the first is across the road from the trailhead. The second trailhead is at the “end” of the trail before you circle back down the road to the other trailhead.

ENJOYMENT: 8 OF 10

It was a long hard trail, after we stopped at the closest gas station to recharge of snacks and drinks we felt ready to come back and tackle the trail again. Although we will wait till the fall or winter time for the cooler weather!

FACILITIES :

Most of the parking lots scattered though out the forest have small restrooms. Most are lit by natural light so if you are ariving early or later you might want to have a light source just in case!

Photos from Alltrails and the USDA forest service websites