According to Arkansas Outside, online reviewer RunRepeat and All Trails partnered in a study to explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on outdoor activity. The data found that the number of hikes logged in 2020 was up 171.36 percent compared to 2019.

• And that's not all - the number of individual hikers in 2020 was up 137.7 percent compared to 2019. Outdoor activities such as hiking have steadily been on the rise the past few years, and the study showed bumps in the number of hikes, the number of users recording hikes, and hikes per user.
• Overall, there has been a rebound in hike time, calories burned, and elevation gain since April 2020 - with thousands of participants recording more hikes than ever before. However, compared to pre-pandemic numbers, hikers are still logging less total time, burning fewer calories, and climbing less elevation. Arkansas Outside

If you're like us, you might be in need of better weather to get excited about a hike. Here are the hikes we are looking forward to when it begins to warm up this Spring (or next week!):

• Rogers: Hobbs State Park (includes soft surface trails for hiking and MTB)
• Bentonville: Coler Mountain Bike Preserve (includes a three mile greenway and several miles of soft surface trails)
• Springdale: Fitzgerald Mountain (includes soft surface trails for hiking and MTB)
• Fayetteville: Kessler Mountain Regional Park (includes soft surface trails as well as connectivity to the Razorback Greenway)