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AM Lake Atlanta in Rogers, you talk about a recreational mecca for this part of the state.

This Is It.

You got everything here from paddling to pedaling walking jogging and of course fishing.

Oh yeah.

Lake Atalanta Park, located just E of downtown Rogers's 236 scenic acres containing 10 miles of hiking and biking trails 3 miles of paved trails and this beautiful 37 acres Springfed Lake.

I'd like to point out that this plant watercress doesn't grow in just any old plain water.

Nope, it's very picky about its water quality and whenever you do see it in a body of water.

You can be.

Rest assured, that the water quality is superb watercress is actually edible kind of like poke salad and speaking of plants, a total of 608 plant species have been documented in the park.

And 200 bird species.

Lake Atlanta was actually built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration, under President Franklin Roosevelt.

The Lake is named after Atlanta.

Gregory wife of OL Gregory, who donated most of the land surrounding the Lake.

The Walking trails that they put in place a great improvement over what was previously here.

So you can come down here and it's very family oriented and get out here and get a good walk in and enjoy the scenery.

The waters voice nice to look at animals.

There's lots of ducks and geese that come into the water.

You ever do a little fishing.

I'm not official rule will hold that against you allowed people don't come out here that it's stocked with trout so they'll come out and fish.

Now, about the type of fish here, there is trout catfish and bass, which any one of those would be fine on my hook right about now Yep any day, now.

After talking with one of the longtime local residents here back when the Lake was formed in the 1930s.

The anonymity's may have been even better back in when we were kids.

There was lots of playground out here lots of swings Teeter Totters, the monkey thing that.

It's like a Cajun should climb on light at lot of actually more in what they have now but to modern times, but you could come down to the Lake and the Ducks would come up there and you could feed him bread and everything and then there was a little building that I think they used to sell minutes and stuff in there didn't.

They and they have the paddle boats to go out on the Lake and the row boats.

You could go out and then the roads.

You could drive all the way around the Lake, then and then when they transformed it.

4 years ago, they shut down that that road to wear announcer walking trail.

All the way around and we can get 2 miles going around that and then there's a road the trout goes up to Arkansa Street or over to Pleasant Ridge St Ann get 4 miles in so it's it's real nice what they've done.

To it, but it wasn't too bad back in the day, either from what you're telling me there was a swimming pool down.

Oh, Oh my goodness, it spring.

Fed cold swimming pool and that's in a skating rink.

The skating rink, probably was right about the city to bring that back.

Yeah, skating rink with the wood floor.

So so but it's very nice and we enjoyed man will come down and walk.

My favorite part of Lake Atlanta, the treehouse.

All that's lacking is a vine to be able to swing down.

Daler tell over here, love snakes.

In fact, you love snakes, so much that he created his own snake world near Berryville and fact he has more snakes here than at the Little Rock Zoo and you get your own personal tour here, plus a great snake education with this python.

Yeah, if you're not a big fan of spiders or snakes, then you'll probably be a little Leary walking inside snake world.

But from what we were told there have been quite a few folks throughout the years who were Deathly afraid of snakes and then after taking the tour wound up actually holding a few of them and Dale Ortel has quite a few snakes for you to choose from.

More than 80 from the venomous kind, which will put you in the hospital pretty quick to the docile nonvenomous kind.

Well, this little guys about a year and a half old, he is actually called.

Pipe on 'cause appears coloration.

These guys are native to Malaysia.

They grow probably 5 foot get about 2832 pounds when full grown short and stubby, they're actually called a stub tailed python or whatever in Malaysia.

Very pretty snake with a red coloration and everything.

And uh he's usually fairly nippy, but he's OK today, so that's good.

So just how did Dale Ortel become the king of snakes in Arkansa United about 89 years old if we I was always scared of snakes and I know if I see something out new yard.

I'd run the house screaming over a harmless snake.

But in the summertime weight.

My dad would always hire college kids to come out and help in a hay field and the one guy was a snake person.

So he had copers in his dorm and everything in NE, Missouri State University.

Back in the early 60s and he's the one that got me over a lot of the fear and he got me.

My first sober when I was 14 against my folks is wishes and I used to keep my snakes in the basement, but my dad wanted him out of there.

It come through the basement door and shut the door.

The rattlesnakes all started rattling before he could turn the light switch on so he said no they're going, so he finally got me a building and heated and everything.

When I was 1314 years old, so that's where it started time I was 15.

I was already doing talks with the University up there on snakes and the professors always like my talks because the kids will fall.

Asleep, like other lectures.

When you had rattle snakes on this stage a kid with rattlesnakes and stuff.

Potential and stayed away so that's how it all got started so I've been doing it now for over 50 years.

And I've exhibited now for over 50 years trying to educate.

People is our goal to stop killing him out out of the peer that's the problem as a people are misinformed about snakes.

And usually all small kids are taught by their parents to hate him, so they'll stay away from him, so they grow up with that notion and less they can come around somewhere like here and my tour guide.

Molina has taught a lot of people to get over the fear and actually will hold the snake the time they leave where they had never would have done people done that prior so we do feel like we've done a lot of good lot of people in the area that find snakes in their yard.

They don't kill him like they used to now 'cause they know Maine.

Remove them and take him to a safe place away from everybody is a lot better than killing so we feel like we've done a lot of good now.

Other than snakes, there are other critters, you can get up close, and personal with tortoises.

Dinosaur looking reptiles and how about vegetarian piranha.

Yep, no chance of getting bit by them and fact.

In South America.

It's the other way around since there one of the staple foods there.

So whether you're a snake lover or not snake world just outside of Berryville is a worthwhile visit.

We guarantee you will leave here knowing a whole lot more about snakes than you ever did before.

Dardanelle rock has been a major landmark along the Arkansa River.

Since the early days of Arkansa Exploration.

It's been used by Native Americans and then later by Confederate soldiers during the civil war.

Darnell rock was used by Native Americans as an assembly point for tribal meetings long before the arrival of white men.

Then later Confederate soldiers used it as a lookout to spy on federal activities in the area.

The eastern most point of the rock was dub signal point an from their soldiers had a commanding view of not only the are Consaul River, but also for surrounding mountains.

Mount Nibo Mount Magazine Petitjean and the Bush Lafave Range.

Also, according to legend this rock was the starting point for a gold finding expedition headed by the infamous Pirate Jean Lafitte, A in 1816.

OK, Gloria were at the base here of Darnell Rock and you've got a story about the name Dardanelle.

Ann about 1820 David Brearley was here, he was the Indian agent and he came through here and saw the rock.

And he called the area Dardani.

After the Straits of guard now because it reminded him of the big rocks there.

Now there's also a Native American legend about this rock?

Yes.

Around 1820 when the Indians were settling in here at the same time as the name was given.

There was a Cherokee tribe here and a Choctaw tribe on the North side of the River.

And somehow these 2 came together and the Indian prints fell in love with the Choctaw Princis.

Well, their families being enemies.

There was no way they had a future so they decided they would run away.

And they were to meet here by the rock.

She was to get a boat come across.

He would wait on the Rock and she never showed up on the agreed time.

And he was so forlorn and destitute at his laws that he jumped in the River and drowned.

So that is their romantic story.

For the legend of the rock.

A little farther down from Dardanelle Rock is another historic landmark called Council Oaks back during the early 1820s.

When Arkansa was still a territory a treaty was signed with Cherokee leaders under 2 towering Oak trees in which the Cherokees gave up all their lands S of the are Consaul River.

It became known as the Treaty of Council Oaks.

One of the trees was destroyed in 1990 by a flood the site is now a City Park.

Even though it's labeled as a treaty quote unclothed, but there's not really any record of it in Washington DC.

And that's a puzzle.

The only information that we have was it was printed in newspapers in I think 1876 was the first one, and then again in 1920 in a newspaper here in Darnell and that's all the information that we have.

We can't prove it one way or another, but we like to think that it happened here.

Supposedly Joseph Brearley told the story and that was printed in the newspapers that they were to make a treaty to give the Indians certain land S of the River and that's what the treaty was supposed to have been for that day.

I'm curious?

How are they able at that time to talk cherokees into giving up?

All the land their land S of the are Consaul River that I don't know if it was during the time of around the Trail of Tears.

I don't really know when they were moving Indians.

W we don't really know for sure.

Why they were but the white man had come in and settled?

Here and had a little just a settlement at the time.

But there was a lot of white people, he ran I guess.

They just wanted the land were not certain for sure.

Why this you know took place, but You know when you don't have good records and you just have bits and pieces.

You try to put things together and we don't know for sure, but it's been something that sounded down through generation to generation and we like to think that there was really a treaty that took place here.

So experience and explore for yourself, the council Oak site and the Dardanelle Rock Natural area.

We're going off road and on this segment on the ATV trails at Fairfield Bay, which leads to some pretty spectacular waterfalls come along with us for the ride Oh yeah.

I admit it came as a surprise to us to find this type of extreme sport in Fairfield Bay.

I mean after all.

Fairfield Bay started out as a recreation retirement resort and granted this is definitely some serious high adventure recreation.

Who would have thought that in Fairfield Bay one could find one of the best UTV trails systems in arkansa or the mid S for that matter?

How did this all come about Telus will Chuck we are always looking for an opportunity to show off what we have in Fairfield Bay and we had an abundant amount of road dirt roads that had gone back to nature and it's just beautiful country around them so.

Trying to find a population that we didn't serve already you TV's came into play.

And we found that in Arkansa.

There's not a lot of opportunities to have this type of environment to ride him so one of our board members made the suggestion that we create UTV trails and he spent a year.

Pudding up arrows, creating trail systems and finding the spot that you're looking at right now.

His name is Jack weeks and he did a great job for us and we've got about 90 miles of trails.

To ride and there've all various skill levels.

You just climb.

The mountain that I would say is probably a black as far as ski ratings go and it's not the most difficult one, so if you have one of these off road utility terrain or sport vehicles bring it on over to Fairfield Bay and cut yourself loose for some wild and crazy and we do mean wild and crazy adventure along the 90 or so miles of trails.

Fair warning, though this is definitely not for the faint hearted.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, the other part of this is exploring the lesser known waterfalls of Fairfield Bay.

Oh, Cassie we almost hate the Devol just well kept secret here about Fairfield Bay.

Tell us what this area is all about in the trails that are here, so this is one of our trails.

Indian falls trails.

It's located halfway through Fairfield Bay.

We started halfway and came through.

There's 4 waterfalls on Indian falls trails.

But this is only one of 9 of our trails in Fairfield Bay are trails range from easy to difficult any range from a half a mile 5 miles plus well.

This place is simply amazing.

I've I've been coming to Fairfield Bay for quite a few number of years and I never knew.

Place was here and a lot of people don't once they start coming at Fairfield Bay and exploring what we have and actually asking or locals.

A lot of people don't know what we have in Fairfield Bay and it's just a beautiful Dylan to come and explore and see all the trails and all the recreational activities that we have as well.

We can already tell that person is a nature lover.

Michael Bay is the place to be.

I would totally agree with you when I first came to Fairfield Bay about 10 years ago, I was.

Shocked about all the things that you can do within a 3 mile radius.

And if you love to get out in nature.

This is the place you can step off of one of the roads and be here at these gorgeous Springs.

There's trails everywhere.

There's so much history here, too, so you got the Indian Rock Cave.

Yeah, you come out here and you listen to the falls and you can really picture.

The Osage Indians out here what it really must have been like hundreds of years ago for them.

And then if you want to get out of nature, a little bit.

You can go golfing.

But the golf courses are just stellar.

They're not crowded they're just beautiful there's pools there's use.

People come from everywhere in there always really surprised and I always say if you are nature lover.

This is Nature's playground.

There is adventure abounds here and this is where you need to be you'll be very surprised.

All so check out the waterfalls and ATV trails at Fairfield Bay for yourself and to view this episode again or any one of our others visit our website at atn.org slash.

Arkansa and don't forget to like us on our Facebook fan page.

And we'll see you again.

The next time for another exciting adventure on exploring Arkansas.