Winding Stair Mountain OHV

The Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area occupies the summit zone of the Winding Stair Mountains in LeFlore County in Oklahoma's Ouachita Mountain country, a unit of the Ouachita National Forest designated as an NRA for its outstanding scenery and recreation values along the Talimena Scenic Drive, the 54-mile designated scenic byway that follows the mountain ridge crest from Talihina OK to Mena AR through some of the most dramatic topography in the mid-South. The OHV trail network in the Winding Stair district operates on designated routes in the national forest surrounding the NRA corridor, threading through the high ridges and hollows of the Oklahoma Ouachitas on a trail system that is among the most elevation-rich OHV terrain in the state. The Winding Stair Mountains reach elevations above 2,600 feet, the highest terrain in Oklahoma outside the isolated Black Mesa in the panhandle, and the OHV routes traverse the characteristic east-west fold structure of the Ouachita Mountains: sandstone and chert ridges running in parallel east-west bands, the deep hollows between them draining south to the Mountain Fork River and north to the Poteau River. The forest cover on the Oklahoma Ouachitas at Winding Stair is mixed pine-hardwood in character (shortleaf pine dominant on the dry sandstone ridges, with white oak, red oak, and hickory mixing in on the more fertile aspects), and the summit ridge of the Winding Stair has the open rocky character of the mountain crest along the Talimena Drive, with views extending across the forested ridge-and-valley topography of the Ouachita system in all directions. The Winding Stair is physically connected to the Arkansas portion of the Ouachita system across the state line, and riders familiar with the Mena AR corridor (Queen Wilhelmina State Park, Wolf Pen Gap) will find the Oklahoma side of the same mountain range accessible from the Talihina hub. Oklahoma OHV registration required on designated routes. Choctaw Ranger District at Talihina (918-653-2991) manages current OHV access.