Dead Chief Trail

The Grand Promenade is a broad walkway just behind and up the hill from the old spas along bathhouse row. It runs for some distance in the shade of tall trees with benches for sitting, and there are even a few places where hot water seeps out of the side of the hills.

According to the map, if you climb further up the hill and take a couple turns, you will find Dead Chief Trail, which climbs up Hot Springs Mountain. We found the trail and started hiking.

The angle was steep enough in places that I wondered that my shoes didn't slip on the gravel and stones. Within minutes I was breathing hard, and not long after that I had broken a sweat. We weren't walking particularly fast, but my huffing and puffing was humbling.

Just at that moment, a young couple passed us, smiling as they briskly went by. We smiled back and gave the sort of greeting you give to smiling strangers on a walk. My thoughts turned inward. There was now no escaping the facts: my years had finally caught up with me.

We kept walking up the trail. From time to time we would stop and look at something in the woods — a clump of moss, or a tiny blooming wildflower. We'd catch our breath and then continue. And then we came to a bend in the trail where the slope diminished.

There on a bench sat the young couple who had passed us earlier. Their faces were red, and their hair was matted to their foreheads. They smiled as they saw us, and mumbled something about the steepness of the trail. We nodded in agreement and kept going.

At the top of the ridge, when we came to the picnic tables at the base of the lookout tower, we sat for a while to rest and drink and have a snack. Trudy got out the map, and we talked about which trail to follow next. As we sat there, I periodically glanced back down the trail, but the young couple never appeared.

The facts, of course, are the facts. Our years always catch up with us, and frankly mine caught up long ago. But as we folded the map and I fastened the pack about my hips, I decided I don't need to feel bad about it ... yet.

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Dead Chief Trail
Hot Springs National Park
Arkansas, USA

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