Muse Mountain Road

First time in the Ouachita National Forest. Started from Hwy 7 on Oak Mountain Road, went around Lake Winona to Muse Mountain Road. Muse Mountain Road was in bad shape. 4x4 is a must. Was pushing the limits on a stock 2022 Tacoma

Did this in a vw touareg with 33. Solid lvl 3 trail. Washouts on the entire trail, not difficulty but there are several. Some puddles, all have hard bottoms. Very fun!

Heavily washed out about a mile or two after Muse mountain. Ruts 2 feet deep in places crossing the trail back and forth as it climbed up the next mountain.

Mostly as described originally but there is a mile or two section that is pretty washed out and has some fairly deep mud holes as previous trail reports have mentioned that are somewhat tricky to navigate.

Lots of washed out road with steep drop offs. I would say a medium-high flip risk. Some of the washouts, one wrong move and you are upside down. On X has it rated as a green trail, but it is definitely a blue.

Small tree down on trail.

After the hard rains we had over the week of April 1-6, Muse Mountain was definitely washed out way more than normal. We came in from the West off Angling Pinnacle 2, from Alum Divide 961. If you look at that part of the map, at the southernmost dip, just above where the “Muse Mountain” waypoint is, that’s when the road gets pretty washed out going downhill. The ruts start just to the second to last left turn then wrap on the right down to where Muse Mountain veers directly North. The rest of the trail had some decent mud holes, one big one doesn’t have a go-around. I’m on 35’s and the bottom was just soft. It was sandy but you’ll see the sandy dirt before the hole. The rest of the larger mud holes have drive arounds.

Beautiful trail. We did the trail West to East coming off of bills ranch road. The main issue is right at the end there is a very deep mud hole. That’s the picture of the gray 4 runner

There was a section of this road that caught me by surprise a bit. Be aware it may be more washed out than originally described.

I'm fairly new to Overlanding and the West half of this trail was quite a surprise at a l3 rating. very slow. based on other l3 trails in this area I'd recommend this section move up to a 4 or 5 to give the newbies a heads up. Crystal mountain at a l5 was easier than this trail too me. could split the difficult section in a new trail. some of the tamer lines require getting really close to a few trees and likely will result in some pin striping. very narrow with some steep washes in a few sections. I leveled up my skills a few points on this one for sure!

Tight trails, pinstripes are likely going to happen. Several deep mud holes around 2-3 feet deep caused some scraping going in and out of the mud holes. Semi technical, a lot of the route is easy but several badly washed out areas. Done by stock rubicon gladiator and stock Nissan Pro4X.

Most areas were ok, but some sections were badly washed out with deep washes on the steeper climbs. Single track most of the way, with sapling pines encroaching on the trail. If you fear pin-striping from tree branches, you will might pick up a few here and there along this trail.