Arkansas’s Boston Mountains
The Boston Mountains “have a grandeur that sneaks up on you,” said Brad Scriber in The Boston Globe. These rugged hills at the southern edge of the Ozarks never rise higher than 2,600 feet, but they offer plenty of drama when you look down from the peaks. Rivers that carved the landscape snake through crisscrossing valleys and past cliff faces of “staggering dimensions.” The name of the range has nothing to do with Massachusetts’s biggest city: The word “boston” once was shorthand for a difficult challenge. Today, much of the terrain is protected land, open to recreation, so you can explore it by canoeing down the Buffalo National River, driving from I-40 to Jasper on Scenic 7 Byway, or hiking the Ozark Highlands National Recreation Trail. At Lost Valley, near Jasper, you can squeeze into a cave to see a “hidden” 25-foot waterfall. At nearby Boxley Valley, you can watch a herd of 500 elk congregate most every night at dusk.
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