Rally in the Ozarks: 4x4 Overland Camping Adventure

Location: Ozark National Forest, Arkansas

Fog hanging over a green river valley in the Ozark National Forest

Our journey started in Safety Harbor, Florida. Jade, Gwendolyn and I drove up to a little town just east of Memphis, Tennessee. Gwendolyn did absolutely amazing on the road trip. The first day we actually went quite a bit longer than we had expected and the road trip was about nine hours. Gwendolyn is 100% good for about five hours of travel but then after that it starts getting a little bit iffy. But we made it to her grandparents all in good sorts. After spending a couple of days there I head out on my own to the Ozarks National Forest. I’m going to meet up with my fellow members of Overland Bound at the very first rally in the eastern United States. The drive is smooth and uneventful across I-40. As soon as you leave Little Rock, Arkansas the 40 turns north and the terrain immediately changes and you can tell you start driving up into the hills. Every time I go on a road trip I am reminded of just how beautiful America really is and how blessed we are to have this terrain available to us. It just so happens that I am reminded of the flooding that I heard something about not long ago. On both sides of me what looks like lakes with some trees on the outside edge is in fact huge farmland that is completely flooded. There is a single tractor completely surrounded by water in the middle of what appears to be a lake.

Into the hills

Goodbye Tennessee, hello Arkansas. The Ozark National Forest was a first for me in my whole life, and you can feel the change the moment the flatland runs out. The foothills come up green and lush, the map turns into a plate of spaghetti, and then a road sign settles the matter: “Crooked and steep next 9 miles.” Woohoo. The road climbed and twisted until it spilled me down into a valley at Byrd’s Adventure Center, basecamp for the rally, with a river running right past the front of it. This was home for the next few days.

Toyota Tundra with an awning and camp chairs set up on a misty Ozarks morning

First dirt

My first real taste of the trails came from the passenger seat of a Land Rover, watching it crawl a slick, rocky hill climb on what looked like a feather of throttle. In my truck I’d have been spinning tires and throwing rocks. The Rover just walked up it while the driver barely touched the pedal. Those things are technological magic. There were rocks, slick bottoms, and water everywhere, and it was gorgeous country to go play in.

A kitted-out white Land Rover Discovery on a rocky Ozarks trail

Picking up Alex

Partway through I peeled off and drove to Fort Smith, Arkansas to pick up Alex. Alex is someone I’ve worked with for almost two years, and he had just flown into America for the very first time, all the way from Romania. Here’s the part that gets me: in two years of working together, we had NEVER met in person. Our first handshake happened in an airport, and then I drove him straight into the woods to christen him with mud, rocks, and 4×4. Welcome to America, buddy.

You’re welcome, future drivers

On the way back, a hardwood tree had come down clean across the road. No way around it. All Alex and I had between us was a baby handsaw and an axe, so we went to work. About 45 minutes of sweating later the tree was off the road and the two of us were filthy and grinning. You’re welcome, future drivers of this road. We rolled back into camp somewhere after midnight.

A hardwood tree down across a dark Ozark road, rigged with a recovery strap at night

Clearing the downed tree off the wet road at night by headlight

Registration day

Then the rally proper kicked off, the very FIRST Overland Bound rally ever held in the Ozarks, and I got to check people in as they rolled up. We ran some training classes and the rigs and faces I mostly knew from a screen started showing up in the flesh. That right there is the part that gets me about this community. These are my people, from my region and the regions all around it, and all of a sudden we’re standing in the same valley swapping stories like we’ve known each other for years.

The Overland Bound crew gathered around a table for a meal during the Ozarks rally

Convoy to Car Wash Falls

We lined the rigs up for our first convoy and pointed them at Car Wash Falls, with five water crossings on the menu. I rode with Mason from Blue Line Overlands because he had a snorkel. The plan was simple: we’d run each crossing first and call whether it was safe for the seven rigs behind us. About twenty of us rolled out.

A convoy of overland rigs lined up on a muddy Ozark National Forest trail

Bud’s cabin

Partway in we stopped at Bud’s cabin, and it’s worth the trip all on its own. Bud owns the place and lets overlanders walk right in. It’s an 1800s cabin kept exactly the way it was back then, with a stone and brick fireplace and the smell of old firewood baked into the walls. There’s a sign-in book in the back room, same tradition as the TransAmerica Trail, so we left our marks next to about twenty others from the convoy. It takes four-wheel drive to even get there, the river runs right below, and there’s a working outhouse if nature calls. If you go, be respectful. It’s private land, it’s free, and it stays that way because people treat it right. The exact coordinates are overlaid in the video above, so watch for them if you want to find your way out there.

The main room inside Bud's historic Ozark cabin with a stone fireplace

A cast-iron wood stove and period furnishings inside Bud's Ozark cabin

Dead in the water

Here’s where it got interesting. Remember the snorkel, the whole reason I rode with Mason? Apparently it was for looks. Halfway across one crossing his Jeep killed the engine and just sat there glugging in the river. The snorkel hose that wraps over the top of the wheel well had torn loose somewhere along the way, so the second the hood went under, the engine drank the river instead of air. I climbed up onto the roof to film while the crew winched him out. That Jeep went into the water with half a tank of fuel and came out with a FULL tank, roughly a 50/50 mix of gas and water.

View from the roof of a Jeep stalled and submerged mid-river during an Ozarks water crossing

With one rig already getting towed off, the group huddled up on whether to risk the same crossing. Most of them could make it. The two question marks were a Land Cruiser and a diesel Jeep. In the end everybody aired down and went for it, everybody except Bill. Bill’s rig was bone stock other than a winch, so he turned around and headed back. Knowing when to walk away is its own kind of skill out here.

Grinning for a selfie at the river crossing with the rigs gathered on the gravel bank

Car Wash Falls and home

Mason’s Jeep got pulled out to the main road, and I jumped in with Brian to finish the run to Car Wash Falls. We aired everyone back up, pointed the convoy back toward Byrd’s, and rolled in around 3:00 with an hour and twenty of trail behind us, every last one of us hungry and ready for a cold one. Adventure. I love adventure.

A Land Cruiser drives under the cascade at Car Wash Falls in the Ozark National Forest

From the trail

Lessons learned

A few things the Ozarks taught us the hard way, so you don’t have to learn them mid-river.

Check your snorkel before you trust it. One torn hose is what drowned that Jeep. Inspect the clamps and the whole run of tube before any water crossing.
Scout with the best-equipped rig. Send the snorkeled, lifted truck across first to read the depth before the whole convoy commits.
Carry a real saw. A hardwood across the road and a toy handsaw is a 45-minute problem. A proper folding saw or a chainsaw makes it five.
Know when to turn back. Bill sat the crossing out in his bone-stock Jeep, and that was the smart call, not the soft one.
Rain-X before a wet haul. A treated windshield sheds rain at speed and keeps your view clear without the wipers fighting you.
Air down for the rough stuff. Dropping tire pressure on the trail buys grip and a smoother ride. Just air back up before you hit pavement.

From Overland to Underwater

By Sunday, June 9th, the rally was over and every last Overland Bound member had packed up and gone home. That left three of us at Byrd’s with nothing on the schedule: me, Alex, and our buddy Baz.

Here’s the thing about Byrd’s Adventure Center. They don’t just point you at trails. They’ll load you up, run you upriver, and drop you in a canoe, a kayak, or a raft to float your way back to camp. We grabbed a little raft. After a week of crossing rivers in trucks, and watching a Jeep drink one whole, it felt only right to end the trip IN the water instead of fighting to keep an engine out of it.

Danan, Baz and Alex paddling a raft down the rocky river at Byrd's Adventure Center after the Ozarks overland rally

It got so shallow in spots that we had to climb out and drag the raft across the gravel before we could float again. At one point we drifted right past somebody’s wedding on the bank. Nothing says congratulations like three filthy overlanders sliding by in a rubber dinghy.

Then Baz decided the raft was optional. He stood straight up and launched himself into the river, lost his hat to the current, waved us off with a “see you downstream,” and made us fish him back into the boat a bend later.

Baz leaping off the raft into the river during the float trip at Byrd's Adventure Center in the Ozarks

During the last part of our float, we were moving along at a nice clip and just as we expected to go over a small ledge, we immediately got hung up which pitched everybody forward. Good thing we weren’t standing! We’d have all been tossed out!

Why this one stuck with me

I came to the Ozarks for a 4×4 rally and drove away with a whole lot more than that. I finally put a real face to two years of working with Alex, watched a man lose an engine and an entire crew rally to winch him out, and stood inside an 1800s cabin that strangers keep beautiful for the next stranger who finds it. That’s the thing about this kind of travel. The trail is just the excuse. The people are the whole point. Now let’s get Alex the rest of the way across America.