Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel
States: Arkansas
the Ozarks' favorite bad idea
The Pig Trail & Eureka is a ~85-mile back-roads route from Ozark to Eureka Springs on AR 23, driven in 1 day, that stays off I-49 through the Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel.
AR 23 earned the name Pig Trail from generations of Razorback fans white-knuckling it to Fayetteville, and its tunnel-of-trees switchbacks over the Boston Mountains remain the state's definitive motorcycle road. It climbs from the Mulberry River's swimming holes through Madison County hill country to Eureka Springs, a Victorian spa town built on cliffs, with a glass chapel in the woods and a seven-story Jesus watching over it all.
📍 Ozark National Forest waysides mark the Mulberry crossings; Eureka's entire downtown is its own register district.
The famous forest section: Turner Bend, Mulberry River access, and the switchback climb that gave the road its reputation.
The river outpost since 1911: canoe rentals, sandwiches, shuttle wisdom and the Pig Trail's unofficial ranger station.
Arkansas's rowdiest float in spring flow, a swimming-hole necklace by July. The AR 23 bridge pools are the classic cool-off.
Hill-country pastures and hollows, then the drop into Eureka's improbable stacked streets.
E. Fay Jones's 1980 glass-and-pine chapel in the woods, routinely ranked among the great American buildings of the century. Forty-eight feet of light; bring your quiet.
A seven-story 1966 statue with a 65-foot armspan looming over town, centerpiece of the Great Passion Play grounds. Subtlety was never the assignment.
An entire Victorian downtown on the National Register, stacked on switchbacked streets with no right angles and no traffic lights. Healing springs built it; stubbornness preserved it.
The 1886 grande dame billing itself America's most haunted hotel, thanks largely to a 1930s quack cancer doctor named Norman Baker. Ghost tours nightly; breakfast unbothered.
The Pig Trail & Eureka is about 85 miles and takes 1 day at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Ozark to Eureka Springs.
It follows AR 23.
It avoids I-49, using AR 23 instead.
6 stops are mapped, including Turner Bend Store, Mulberry River, Thorncrown Chapel, Christ of the Ozarks and Downtown Eureka Springs.
The Scenic Seven & the Pig Trail (3 days) and The Ozark & Ouachita Highlands (6 days).
The atlas’s seasonal note for this route: “Fall weekends belong to the motorcycles; ride the Trail midweek if you want it to yourself.”
The Scenic Seven & the Pig Trail (3 days) · The Ozark & Ouachita Highlands (6 days)
Connects with: The Buffalo River Loop · Arkansas 7: The Scenic Seven · Talimena & the Ouachitas
More in the Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel: Arkansas 7: The Scenic Seven · Crowley's Ridge Parkway · The Arkansas Delta · Talimena & the Ouachitas · The Bootheel: US 61 North · The Buffalo River Loop