Hiking
Trails - Taum Sauk Mountain State Park
Want to hike to the top of the highest mountain in Missouri?
An easy hike from the parking lot of Taum Sauk Mountain
State Park will lead you a mere 1,000 feet on a paved path to
Missouri’s highest point, the 1,772 foot summit of Taum
Sauk Mountain. But, that's not all this magnificent state
park has to offer the avid Missouri trail blazer. Taum
Sauk is a 7,500-acre, virtually untamed expanse of wilderness.
Taum Sauk and its closest neighbors are ancient, volcanic, Precambrian
uplifts many times older than the Appalachians, and may be among
the few areas in the United States never to have been submerged
by ancient seas.
The hike to Mina Sauk Falls will take your breath away. It’s
not the hike itself, as it’s only a slightly-rugged three-mile
loop (1.5 miles downhill then 1.5 miles back up), it is the
awesome sight of Missouri’s tallest waterfall that is
breathtaking. In wet weather, water rushes over the fall’s
peak, crashing relentlessly into several volcanic rock ledges
before meeting the clear, rock-bottomed pool 132 feet below.
A mile down
the Taum Sauk section of the Ozark
Trail waits the Devil’s Tollgate. This
eight-foot wide passage of volcanic rhyolite stretches 50-feet
long and 30-feet high on both sides. From here, hikers can continue
on the over 10-mile hike to nearby Johnson’s Shut-Ins
State Park. *The trail to Johnson’s Shut-Ins is temporarily
closed for restoration.
Hike through natural communities including Oak and Hickory
upland forests, flatwoods, savannas and bottomland forest in
this virtually untamed expanse of wilderness. These diverse
communities provide habitats for a range of wildlife from the
brilliant red cardinal and sly red fox, to the docile whitetail
deer and frisky raccoon. Linger at the overlook which
allows visitors a wide, incomparable view of the mountains to
the north, and a guide to help identify and distinguish them.
Nearby, a small camping area offers 12 basic campsites ($9 per
night) and a picnic area. Also, a special-use area is available
for organized non-profit youth groups.
Taum
Sauk Mountain State Park gives visitors a glimpse of nearly
unspoiled wilderness and an opportunity to imagine the world
before civilization interfered.
Hiking
in Elephant Rocks State Park
Go hiking in Elephant Rocks State Park among the Elephants.
Named
for a train of gigantic pink granite boulders perched atop a
hill, just like circus elephants standing end to end. The curious
geologic formations were created when the Ozark plateau was
formed during a great uplifting of the entire area about 250
million years ago and the vertical cracks (or joints) between
the rocks became more pronounced. Time and weather took its
toll, clearing the weakest pieces out of the joints and laying
the immense, oblong blocks of granite bare to the elements.
Slowly, the corners were worn away to give the boulders their
smooth rounded shape, and trees and shrubs grew in the cracks
to help enlarge the joints and wear away the surface of the
rock.
Hike the
park’s over 131 acres. There
is no record of the actual number of “elephants”
inhabiting the park. Old ones erode away and new elephants wait
beneath the cracks and joints of the granite hillside. The park’s
pink patriarch, Dumbo, is 27 feet tall, 35 feet long and 17
feet wide, weighing in at a colossal 680 tons! This
acreage has been designated as a Missouri Natural Area and will
be protected from further development.
Elephant Rocks was the first state park
trail in Missouri designed for visitors with physical and visual
handicaps. Known as the Braille Trail, signs written in Braille
and regular text guide visitors along a paved, handicap-accessible
trail which allows visitors to see the huge rocks and seven
acres of the park.
Hiking Johnson's Shut-ins State Park
Go hiking
in Johnson's Shut-ins State Park. The park consists of
8,549 acres and is an
immense natural playground. One
of the primary features of the park is the 180-acre Johnson’s
Shut-Ins Natural Area. Another section of the park is
included in the state’s largest natural area, the 7,028-acre
St. Francois Mountains Natural Area. Still another part, the
Johnson’s Shut-Ins Fen Natural Area, is a 9-acre combination
of seep forest and calcareous fens found in the flood plains
of the East Fork Black River. This wetland community is promoted
by seasonally ponded rain water and calcareous ground water
seepage on the flat flood plain. Seep forests are rare in Missouri
and this unique location is dominated by trees such as Red Maple,
Green Ash, Honey Locust and Slippery Elm and wetland plants
such as Closed Gentian and Silky Willow are found in the fen.
Johnson's Shut-ins is unique on earth. Nearly
1.5 billion years ago, violently explosive volcanoes hurled
hot gasses and ash into the air. The ashes and gas fell and
cooled, forming rhyolite rock. A billion years later,
shallow inland seas swallowed the ancient, worn-down mountains,
burying the igneous rock under thousands of feet of sedimentary
rock such as limestone, sandstone, shale and dolomite.
About 250 million years later, the entire Ozark
region lifted and the seas retreated. The wind and rain took
their toll on the upraised land, sending streams of sand- and
gravel-laden water to slice away the layers of soft sedimentary
rock and expose the rhyolite below. In low places, the swift
Black River became "shut-in" by the hard igneous rocks,
swirling and churning to form huge potholes, and breaking away
the weaker rock to create natural water slides and canyon-like
gorges.
The park
will be open for day use and swimming during the 2008 season.
To read much more about Johnson's Shut-ins, and to monitor the
progress of the restoration of the park after the breach at
the Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Plant in December 2005 please
see this link.
