Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel
the South's only east–west mountains
The Ouachitas run east to west, almost alone among American ranges, and the Talimena National Scenic Byway rides their crest for 54 miles of switchbacks and long blue views. The approach is its own show: the quartz-crystal capital of the world, the radio hometown of Lum and Abner, and a castle-in-the-sky lodge named for a Dutch queen. The byway tips a few miles over the Oklahoma line, which the atlas forgives.
📍 Byway waysides crown nearly every overlook; Mount Ida's mines post their own dig rules.
US 270 through the Ouachita National Forest, dig-your-own crystal mines at Mount Ida, and the railroad town of Mena at the mountain's foot.
The self-crowned Quartz Crystal Capital of the World: pay-to-dig mines where a few hours with a hand rake sends you home with the real thing.
Mena's square-block park around an 1851 log cabin and spring, in a town the Kansas City Southern railroad conjured in 1896.
Up to Queen Wilhelmina's lodge, then the full crest run along Rich and Winding Stair mountains to the Oklahoma end.
The 'castle in the sky' lodge atop Arkansas's second-highest peak, named for the Dutch queen whose investors financed the railroad below. Sunrise from the lodge porch is the fee.
Fifty-four miles of ridgeline byway with pull-offs stacked like theater boxes over the forested folds. Late October turns the whole run to copper.
The byway's western gate in Choctaw Nation country, a two-street railroad town that fills with motorcycles every fall weekend.
More in the Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel: Arkansas 7: The Scenic Seven · Crowley's Ridge Parkway · The Arkansas Delta · The Pig Trail & Eureka · The Bootheel: US 61 North