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| Summit kiosk (all pictures mine) |
As a whole, Louisiana is pretty flat. And by "flat", I mean
flat. But luckily for us, Northern Louisiana has some hills, including the state's highest point. Driskill Mountain, with a summit elevation of 535 feet, is hardly a mountain in the normal sense of the term and the third-lowest state high point, but it's hard to find higher ground in this part of the country. That being said, it's quite a pleasant hike and not particularly difficult. If you're traveling on nearby Interstate 20 (less than 15 miles away), Driskill is an interesting detour that will take less than 2 hours.
I started up Driskill around 8:30 AM on the morning of March 17th from the trailhead at Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, roughly 10 miles south of Arcadia. May have been early on a Saturday, but it was already humid and heating up.
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| Trailhead is at the back of the parking lot next to a service road |
The trail is pretty easy to follow and is generally wide and clear. Initially, it follows the access road for a cell tower and oil well.
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| Alongside the church cemetery |
All turns along this trail are signed, so don't turn when the access road does.
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| Cell tower is to the right. Continue straight. |
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| Oil well to the right. Keep going straight. |
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| Sign marking the designated trail just past the oil well turnoff |
Soon enough we get to a gate and the "real hiking" begins.
There's a fork immediately past the gate. Right goes uphill to what is referred to locally as "false mountain". As the name indicates, False Mountain is NOT the true summit and you'll be adding a decent amount of unnecessary ascent/descent by taking this route. Use the much wider and clearer official trail to the left.
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| The fork. Left is the Driskill trail, right leads to "False Mountain" |
A little ways past the False Mountain fork is another fork. This time, you want to go right, but I don't think that's too hard to figure out.
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| Right here leads uphill to the summit. |
Once we're past this fork, we're over half a mile into the hike and at the home stretch. This is where the uphill segment begins.
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| Marker shortly after fork |
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| Sign at marker. Entire trail is on private land, so please stay on the trail. |
Some more twists and turns up here as we make our way to the summit.
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| Steepest hill on the hike is right here, less than 1/4 mile before the summit |
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| Hard left turn at the top of the steep section |
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| Final little bit along the ridgeline |
After walking along the summit ridge for a short bit, we reach a clearing and the true summit.
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| Summit area from trail |
The true summit is marked by a cairn to the right of the kiosk.
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| Summit cairn |
After touching the cairn to claim high point #19, I signed my name in the summit log.
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| First ascent of Driskill on March 17, 2018 was made by yours truly. For some reason, I put "2017" in most of the summit logs I signed this trip. Oops. |
To the left of the kiosk is a short path leading to a viewpoint with benches installed by the Highpointers Fountation.
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| The only view from Driskill |
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| The bench |
A sign next to the kiosk points to a trail that should be used to return down, but signage disappears immediately.
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| Don't use that trail to return to the trailhead. Go back on the trail you hiked up. |
I tried the "return trail", but after losing the trail and not seeing any blazes, I returned to the summit and retraced my steps down the main trail.
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| Approaching the parking lot |
Even with my wild goose chase on the "return trail", I made the round trip in under an hour, with 20-30 minutes of hiking each way between the trailhead and summit.
Getting Here
Driskill Mountain is in a rural area of Bienville Parish, Louisiana, approximately 10 miles south of Arcadia, 20 miles southwest of Ruston, and 60 miles east of Shreveport. The trailhead is located at Mount Zion Presbyterian Church on LA Route 507. A sign in front of the church indicates that this is the state highpoint.
