Earth: PhotoBlog

Wednesday morning I packed up my gear and headed to Jackson Missouri for the Trail of Tears State Park. This was going to be at least a 2.5 hour drive, so I brought some camping gear in case I didn’t feel like making the drive back. I was kidding myself of course; the mere prospect of camping wasn’t something I was likely to turn down. This particular park had some special interest for it’s history. It is located on the site where nine of 13 groups of Cherokee Indians crossed the Mississippi River in harsh winter conditions in 1838-1839. There is Cherokee lineage on my father’s side, and Apache on my mother’s.
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The first hike of the season was spent at Meramec State Park in Sullivan, Missouri.
Initially I hit the Natural Wonders Trail, which is a short 1 mile trail, which the web site boasted as having “Caves, glades, mature forest and overgrown beaver meadows.” I was mostly interested in the caves, although many caves in the state have been closed off to protect bats from white nose disease this year, but I figured it would be worth a shot.
The trail was indeed quite beautiful and very well groomed. I headed out with just my camera in tow and was surprised at the lack of overgrowth along the trail. Afterward, I hit the Wilderness trail, which consists of a 6 mile southern loop and a 4 mile northern loop. I’d intended to do the entire 10 miles, but sadly I cut it short due to relative boredom. The trail was very overgrown with much of the bush over my head, and I was spending a great deal of time flicking off ticks.
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Well, unfortunately the planned trips mentioned in the previous post didn’t happen. The weather here got pretty bad for a little bit, and I got busy with work. Today is the first day back to campus life until May, so I’m not holding on to any hope of being able to go anytime soon. We shall see how well I’m able to tear myself away from the mountains of books and notes early spring.

Until then… enjoy your winter!

Sometime between now and January 17th, I have three new parks I intend to go shoot.

Hawn State Park, which is about an hour and a half away, and features a 10 mile trail, which was constructed in 1976  with the help of the Ozark Chapter of the Sierra Club. Evidently there is bobcat and wild turkey in the area. While I’d love to get some nice shots of both, I’m not sure I really want to be confronted with either.
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The Taum Sauk State Park, where Mina Sauk Falls is located, is nearly three hours from me, so for this trip I opted to camp out. It was a very cold December, it had previously snowed in the area, and what wasn’t covered with snow, was frozen. Slept in my car that night (thank the Chevy gods for auto start!) in one of the most beautiful (albeit small) campgrounds I’d ever seen. It was just stunning; heavily wooded with a small, frozen pond just across the road from my spot. I headed out to the trail first thing Sunday morning, in search of the “tallest waterfall in Missouri.” The trail itself was incredibly rocky, obvious remnants of the Ozarks, and lined with the St Francois mountains. In fact, St Francois State Park and Taum Sauk looked very much alike. I will be going back here in the Spring, without doubt. More about this beautiful wonder can be found here.
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