T
he water, woods and mountains of majestic Arkansas are unchanging and timeless, but the question of how to best use and protect those resources is a constant. How we manage our natural attractions is an eternal jigsaw puzzle where every piece is cut into the same shape; the overall picture is often hard to see even as random pieces fit together. The pandemic year has underscored the challenges and opportunities for Arkansas’s outdoors like never before as people flocked to the wild as a way to recreate safely in the era of COVID-19. The meteoric rise in work-fromhome arrangements gives people the chance to move and live where they want regardless of the location of their job, and more are choosing Arkansas for quality of life all the time. And the intense focus of the past two years on issues of diversity and equality means taking a hard look at addressing the things often prohibiting segments of the population from enjoying campgrounds, trails and outdoor activities. Arkansas Wild visited with multiple sources — including three fresh faces in leadership roles at key outdoors-related agencies — to see how the outdoors are evolving in The Natural State. What follows are their accounts of what we have done and what we have left to do.
ROLLIN’ HOMIE
CALI TRANSPLANT TRANSFORMING LOCAL TRAILS Jeremy McGhee discovered mountain biking after suffering a motorcycling accident in 2001 that left him paralyzed from the waist down. That brought him to Bentonville in 2016 as a presenter at an international cycling conference and, so taken with the surroundings and the trails, he bought a house there where he lives about half the year. Settling into his new home, he’s tackled trails on a specially designed bike, documenting his adventures for his social media channels the UNPavement. But he’s more than just a consumer of dirt; he’s also a leading expert in how to adapt trails for riders of all abilities. “I have an awesome bike that allows me to get out on the trails and enjoy nature,” McGhee said. “But it is wide and it is limited. I might be going down a trail and it could be fine, which is a majority of the time, or something happens and I have to turn around. Imagine being a paraplegic and 26 | Arkansas Wild | MARCH 2022
Jeremy McGhee hangs ten in the ‘Pen (Slaughter Pen, that is).
