April 10th -11th, 2009  a few miles from Jasper Arkansas we returned to the Eye of the Needle.   Friday night 5:30 p.m. met at the Ranger Annex and picked up a load of boys and young men and a commander or two.  Then off to Ozark to pickup the rest of the group.  13 souls headed out for a 1.5 mile backpack in the dark along the Indian Creek.  After 2 hours of fellowship on the church van we arrived at the trail head. It was dark. On went the headlamps and backpacks and down the trail we went.

The first part of the trail is pretty easy.  Then after about 3/4 of a mile it starts getting tricky. Walking along the banks of a meandering mountain stream.  A lot of stream crossing.  Just went we thought we were going to die and had missed it we could hear it.... "The water fall"  we couldn't see it but we could hear it.  The only flat spot for tents for quite a ways.   We gathered firewood.  Then setup up tents.  (weather was perfect and stars were out)  we were on a creek bank and on each side it went up about 400 feet. 

The night went fast and we had a big fire and cooked supper.  Then the council fire service.  After that it was almost midnight.  I climbed into my little one man tent put on my dry sleeping clothes and laid their listening to the conversation still around the fire and the waterfall and the stream girgling just below us a few feet.  Wow.

The next morning.  Wow look at that waterfall!    The fire was rekindled.  We cooked breakfast and then morning devotion.  The day after Jesus was crusifed. What would you have thought if you were one of the 12 that followed Jesus and now he was dead laying in a tomb.  There was 13 of us around that fire. After some very good discussion and prayer many thoughts came upon what our Lord and King Jesus had done for us.

Then off on a day hike to the eye of the needle.  The group had been instructed to stop at each trail crossing and wait for the WHOLE group before going on.  This trail was a one way in and one way out trail.  Sometimes the trail would jump the creek and sometimes it would go over little streams that were coming down the hill.  Other times it was just dotted by pretty little purple flowers and then other times it was a 100 foot drop and the path was just wide enough to walk down it.  I did see two little girls there about 7 years old that one family had walked up there. 

Click on a picture to get a larger view.

After the boys spent about 2 hours climbing and exploring the cracks, cravis's and caves and were pretty much really dirty or soaked we made the trek back down the trail to base camp and returned home all in less than 24 hours.  Wow! What a time of mentoring.