Distance: 1 mile (long loop is 2.25 miles)
My Photos: [www.mohiking.com]
Official Site: [mdc4.mdc.mo.gov]

I had been on this trail once before with a group, but today was the first day I looked at the map and noticed that you can do either the short loop or long loop. Even the long loop it only 2.25 miles. For the first part of the trail you climb and climb and after that the trail follows a nice ridge for a ways. I noticed the ridge had drop offs on both sides and made a mental note to go back when all the leaves are off the trees. That ridge is probably really nice in winter when you see the opposite hills off both sides of the ridge.

After following the ridge a little ways, I came to the clearly marked intersection for the short loop. I had intended to do the whole trail as I had before because it was nice, but it was getting late in the day and I was a little concerned about the clouds and reports of strong storms we were supposed to get this afternoon, so I decided to just see what the short loop looks like.

I was surprised. I thought it would just be a short cut path back to the parking lot so I was surprised to encounter 3 stairways in the steeper parts of getting you back down the hill. I hadn’t expected that they would put that much time and care into what I thought would be just a short cut path.

Next to the 3rd stairway, I was also surprised to find a very mossy mini bluff type area. There was a small buff of sorts, but the rocks were all completely and thickly coated with green moss. I’ve been hiking a lot in the last few months and hadn’t seen anything like that before. It was rather striking because there was a lot of it. You can see photos of this in the photo section for this trail.

The short loop was a nice little hike, I would say it’s about a mile.




Edited 2 times. Last edit at 11/17/05 08:28AM by Nick Kasoff.