Meador Manor

Today I squeezed in a five mile hike on the bike trails north of the dam of Lake Keystone to the west of Tulsa before an afternoon appointment drew me back to Bartlesville. Nothing very scenic, but it was satisfying to stroll about in the woods and listen to some podcasts on a trail that was new to me.

I’ve enjoyed day hikes in the Ozarks since childhood, and incorporated hikes into several of my summer trips to the beautiful Pacific Northwest.  But it wasn’t until July 2009 that I became obsessed with going on as many day hikes as feasible while snapping nature photos and then posting everything to my blog.

Now it is also standard procedure for me to track my day hike using the MotionX GPS application on my iPhone 4, which thankfully has better battery life and multitasking than my iPhone 3G ever did. At the end of a hike I email the track to myself for later viewing in Google Earth, and I edit a screenshot from it to include with the photo set.

Happily all of the exercise also helps me combat the slowing metabolism of middle age, although soon I’ll have to give up those delicious sugary soft drinks if I don’t want to become too thick for my clothes. Unfortunately for me, restaurants don’t carry the one diet drink I can stand: Coca-Cola Cherry Zero.

I’ve tracked my hikes over the past fifteen months in both a Google Map and a spreadsheet, linking them to both the relevant blog posts and Flickr photo sets.  It turns out that I’ve now hiked almost 350 miles over 54 days, averaging about 6.5 miles per hiking day.  And I’m looking forward to many more hikes this autumn.

For my second day hike of autumn 2010, I decided to return to southeast Missouri.  A Silver Dollar Special at Eggbert’s launched me back down US 60, this time to the Piney Creek Wilderness a few miles north of Shell Knob.  I’d never been there before, although it was established in 1980 and is only fourteen miles as the crow flies from the vacation home my parents had on Table Rock throughout my childhood.

My trail books warned me that this 6.2 mile trail was also used by horses and was steep in places, required repeated fording of Piney Creek, and could be overgrown.  So I was careful to wear long pants and take along a good trail map and both of my trekking poles.  I pulled into the parking area at the Piney Creek fire tower at 10:30 a.m., joining a couple of empty horse trailers.

The Piney Creek tower is just like the Sugar Camp fire tower I’ve climbed many times and other towers dotting the Mark Twain National Forest.  The Forest Service has discouraged climbers of this tower by removing all of the wooden stairs from the first flight.  I wasn’t about to let that stop me, so I widened my stance and used the metal stair supports they’d left behind to ascend that flight.  All but one of the wooden steps were in place for the rest of the way up, and while the tower room had no windows left and a dodgy floor in one spot, I was able to get a sweeping panorama of the area I would soon be hiking through.  I could see my car down below next to the imposing shadow of my aerie.

I took the trail south along a narrow ridgeline through a forest of pine, oak, hickory, and cedar.  This first part of the trail had several steep sections which had been heavily churned by horses but thankfully the mud had almost fully dried out and I could tread lightly across the mess.  Eventually I descended some limestone outcrops and then the trail ran along the side of a steep hill on a limestone ledge above a side creek hidden in a deep valley to my right.  Finally I reached Piney Creek itself and began following it eastward towards Table Rock Lake.  I celebrated reaching the namesake creek by posing atop a tree which had toppled across it.  Gravel bars throughout the creekbed made it easy to ford and I was struck by the clarity of the water pooled along it – what a contrast to the brown mud of the Caney and Elk Rivers near my home.

Near a later ford of Piney Creek, two large black Labrador Retrievers came bounding along the trail towards me.  One wore a wire muzzle and both had radio tracking collars.  They did not challenge or bark, but pranced around, sniffing me for a bit, before heading back the way they had come.  They bounded across the creek and I did not see them again – either they took off amidst the brush or down one of the side equestrian trails.

Eventually I reached the first of two trails leading back up to the fire tower.  I glimpsed a couple of men on horseback disappearing up the trail that way – I guessed those horse trailers would be gone by the time I returned to the trail head, a prediction borne out a few hours later.

The trail grew more overgrown as I proceeded eastward along the creek bottom.  Eventually I found the junction to the trail I would later take northwest back to the fire tower.  But I was determined to follow Piney Creek on eastward until it spilled into Table Rock Lake.  This portion of the trail was far less used and heavily overgrown.  I used my trekking poles to swish back the overgrowth so I could make out the trail beneath, grateful for my long pants.  Normally I would not bother with such a trail, but I wanted to lunch beside the lake.

Finally I caught a glimpse of the Piney Creek embayment ahead.  The trail ended in a clearing with a fire ring and a convenient table rock (ha!) where I could set down my pack and poles and sit down for lunch at 12:45 p.m., enjoying the peaceful view.  After my meal, I tried following a faint trail leading off parallel to the lake shore, but it quickly disappeared amongst the growth.  I wheeled around and headed back up the creek.

After turning northwest on the return trail, I began a long ascent.  Along the way I spotted a walking stick which was about five inches long.  His camouflage was quite good – I only spotted him because of his movement across my path, and had to get very close and enhance the contrast in my photo to make him apparent.

I came across a family of backpackers during my ascent up the trail, which followed a nice dry creek bed.  Eventually the trail popped out onto the asphalt forest road and I followed it back to the gravel road leading to the fire tower.  It was about two o’clock and I had not had my fill of hiking for the day, so I drove over to Roaring River State Park, where I decided I would take the Devil’s Kitchen Trail.

The last time I’d been at the park was the previous October, when I took the Deer Leap, Fire Tower, Eagle’s Nest, Spring House, and River trails.  I had also taken the park’s Pibern Trail with my friend Carrie the previous July.  But one great trail I had not been on in some time was the Devil’s Kitchen Trail, which loops about 1.5 miles about the park’s northwest corner, although I took a spur which lengthened the hike to over two miles.

I parked at the trailhead across from the lodge and headed uphill.  My first stop was a ledge upslope from the trail which has eroded out into a tiny cave.  When the trail reached its northern tip I saw the largest cave on this trail, which is spacious enough to afford some shelter if you are willing to crouch.  The trail then looped back southward until it reached a large clearing I remember being confused by in my youth, since it had an unmarked side trail.

Now they’ve marked that trail with a number, which is of little use without an interpretive trail guide, but at least you can figure out which trail is the main one.  I took that side spur, faintly recalling that it led northwest to the park boundary.  Sure enough, it ran along a wide ridge until I popped out on Highway 112 by the water slide north of the park.  I retraced my steps to the Devil’s Kitchen Trail, following it as it curved down the steep hillside.  The trail through here has always been very wide and steep, with wooden poles placed crosswise across the trail to control erosion.  Whenever I take this path, I think about the nearby steep hill on Highway 112.  My grandfather used to drive his car up that hill in reverse in the early twentieth century, since the old cars had far more torque in that gear.  Sounds scary, but the only alternative to reaching Roaring River from the north is the old Forest Road 1135 over from Hilltop and then southwest down a creek bed into the Roaring River Spring area.  A friend and I took that old road a few years back.  It was heavily washed out and at times I was afraid I’d ground my Camry on it.  But it was quite scenic and a few brave souls have built homes along it, although I noticed they all had four-wheel drive sports utility vehicles and high-clearance pickup trucks!

As the trail leveled out I came across the old spring which has flowed out from the hillside throughout my lifetime and knew Devil’s Kitchen was close by.  It is a room of sorts, created by slabs of rock which slid over a gap in the eroding bluff.  The story goes that it was used as a hideout by Civil War guerrillas.  Through the 1990s the room was intact and easily accessible through a gap in the rocks.  My friends the Falkners posed inside the room for my camera back in 1993, and my friend Wendy posed atop its roof in 1997.  But sometime after that half of the roof finally slid down, blocking the old entrance and reducing the kitchen to a fraction of its former size.

Now you have to scramble up the back side of the kitchen, up onto the remains of the old roof to access what’s left of the kitchen.  Daredevil that I am, I posed while sitting directly under what remains of the roof.  Knowing that similar big slabs of rock finally broke free in the past 13 years, I did not tarry.  Passing by the beautifully eroded bluffs, I trotted on down the trail.

Returning to the trailhead, I walked across the river, which was lined with fishermen and fisherboys and visited the old lodge, still saddened that the park store has decamped to a soulless new home.  But this trip was not to end on stories of collapse and abandonment.  I drove to Cassville, where I happily found The Rib restaurant open for Saturday evening under new ownership.  They were kind enough to serve me, even though I’d shown up almost 30 minutes before they officially opened.  My French Dip was delicious, although I made the mistake of ordering sweet fries, foolishly not realizing that meant they’d be made from sweet potatoes, which are not my favorite.  I compensated with some chocolate cake afterward.

The last few times I’d been in town I was disappointed to find this restaurant closed, as I have always liked its food since it became The Rib in the late 1980s.  And in the 1970s it was Crows restaurant, known for its great homemade bread.  And whenever I sit in the main dining room with its sloped ceiling I recall how the place looked decades ago when, as a small child, I took the opportunity to lecture a bemused patron of the restaurant about how he shouldn’t be smoking.  Now, years later, that particular room is, appropriately enough, the non-smoking section.

It was an uneventful drive back to Bartlesville, with me arriving early enough for a hot shower and a few hours of photo editing and blogging.  Next weekend I’ll be attending a performance of Chris and Dave Brubeck’s Ansel Adams: America by the Bartlesville Symphony on Saturday night, with four of my own landscape photos on display in the Community Center’s Lyon Art Gallery.  So there won’t be a long day trip to Missouri or Arkansas, although perhaps I can squeeze in a hike nearby in Oklahoma.

Click here for a slideshow of today’s day hikes

Autumn began this past Wednesday, so for my inaugural day hike of my favorite season I wanted to visit something new with great views.  Previous forays into my Hiking Missouri and my 50 Hikes in the Ozarks books had led me to think about Bennett Spring, but then I noticed that there were many short interconnected trails and a mix of manmade ruins and karst geology at the nearby Ha Ha Tonka State Park.  It was a four hour drive from Bartlesville, so I could just squeeze it into a single-day outing.

So I was up at 5 a.m. Saturday morning to prep my trip, have a Country Breakfast at Eggbert’s, and by 7 a.m. head east on pitiful US 60 to Vinita, where I could then take I-44 northeast to Lebanon, Missouri.  On the drive I listened to a technology podcast and then, to spur me onward, I listened to Meat Loaf’s thundering and theatrical Bat Out Of Hell album.  I especially enjoyed the energy and tortured vocals of the live version of the title track.  I’ve been reading Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector, and on Meat’s album You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) was a great example of how Spector influenced others.

I wasn’t too thrilled about having to drive through Lebanon.  A quarter century ago my friend Jeff and I were teenagers returning from a trip to St. Louis when my 1978 Chevy Monte Carlo started acting up on I-44 and we pulled into Lebanon for service.  The car was running very rough, a coolant hose had greatly expanded but not burst, and the mechanic at the local Chevy dealer was an incompetent crook who said all we needed to do was have a friend of his cut out the catalytic converter.  We knew that was malarkey, so we had to go to a different shop where they could properly diagnose the problem (failing ignition coil, as I recall).  Unfortunately they only took cash and couldn’t get to the car until the next day.  Noting the prospective payment for parts and labor, Jeff and I had very little spare cash, and back then we were too young to have credit cards.  So we had to spend the night at the cheapest joint we could find, the memorably misnamed Bell Motel, which should of course been called Hell Motel.  Here’s a postcard of what it was like when it was new, and here is what it became.  When we finally were back on the road the next day I drove like a Bat Out of Bell.

On this return trip so many years later, I drove straight through Lebanon, avoiding the east side where the Bell Motel was once located.  I stopped at the disturbingly named Kum & Go for some fuel for the car as well as myself, picking up a turkey sandwich I could eat out at the park.  Then I drove the rural highways over to Ha Ha Tonka.

Back in 1909 Missouri’s governor proposed this area for the first state park, but it didn’t become one until 1978.  As told on Conor Watkin’s website, Kansas City businessman Robert Snyder bought the area around Gunter Spring in 1904.  Unlike Thomas Sayman, another businessman who bought Roaring River and then donated it to the state, Snyder spent considerable funds constructing a stone castle, carriage house, greenhouses, and water tower on the site.  But he was soon struck down in one of the state’s first automobile accidents.  The projects were gradually completed by his sons in a less elaborate fashion.  They lost a court fight over Bagnell Dam and the Lake of the Ozarks and declining fortunes eventually led them to lease the property out as a hotel.  It burned in 1942, leaving only the sandstone water tower, which was burned by vandals in 1976.  Today the native sandstone remains of the castle and carriage house remain, and the water tower’s roof has been restored.

Gunter Spring was renamed Ha Ha Tonka by a land speculator, who claimed that was Osage for ‘Laughing Waters’.  That’s doubtful and other sources say it means ‘Laughing Spirit’, but one verified factoid is that almost 50 million gallons of water gush out of the spring each day.  The spring area features caves, sinkholes, natural bridges, and bluff shelters which are all formed from the remains of a collapsed underground cavern system.

I stopped at the park office where a perky young woman, whom I would later see out on the trail with a lucky young man, gave me a detailed trail map and pointed out various locations where I could park and then walk to the park’s main features.  I declined to drive around from site to site, of course, instead parking at the central Colosseum sinkhole area where I could have a picnic lunch and then wind my way through about eight miles of interconnected trails to see everything on foot.

I enjoyed a turkey sandwich and tangelo at a picnic table at the parking lot, but the peaceful surroundings were disrupted when a group of male motorcyclists buzzed in, yakking and cursing about their bikes.  They weren’t about to leave the asphalt, however, so it wasn’t long before they roared off.  By then I had donned my hiking boots, sprayed down with Cutter insect repellent, slathered on some sunscreen, and was ready to head out.

It was only a short walk to the large natural bridge, which I walked under, the ceiling many feet above my head.  The trail led on through the Colosseum sinkhole, which has steep sides and is 300 by 500 feet.  A later gap in the trees provided views of the Castle Ruins and Water Tower perched high above the chasm of the Ha Ha Tonka Spring below.  Winding my way above and around the spring I was provided repeated views of the Water Tower.  I’m glad they’ve repaired the roof, as this is a striking building on the hillside, its eighty foot height allowing it to jut above the trees.  The early afternoon sun provided a nice contrast of light and shade on its native sandstone, and lit up the interior through openings in its thick walls.  Originally the large tank was at the top of the tower, with living quarters below that for property employees.  That explains why a water tower would have a chimney, but I’m not sure I’d sleep well with thousands of gallons of water perched above my head all night.

I passed the remains of the stables and carriage house, which burned at the same time as the Castle.  Then I saw the eerie eastern facade of the Castle Ruins.  Families were strolling around the grounds, snapping photos of each other against the ruins.  We could see the surviving interior walls and foundations, and the southern facade featured a walkway beneath the buttresses.  On the south side of the ruins was what I presumed to be the remains of a fountain, with a nice view of the Lake of the Ozarks to the west.

I then took the Quarry Trail, which looped northwest of the ruins.  Turkey vultures circled overhead, no doubt roosting on the 250-foot high bluffs below the ruins and above the spring.  I was listening to a Hercule Poirot mystery on my iPhone, and found it more interesting than the shallow quarry where the stones were harvested for the buildings.  Then I went back around the spring and down the trail to its mouth.

This spring is not as photogenic as the smaller spring at Roaring River, but you can sense its power in the heaving surface of the water gushing out into the Lake of the Ozarks.  Far above I could see the ruins.  Soon I came upon a large island, which had a perimeter trail passing by “balanced rock”, an unprepossessing dolomite boulder perched near the west end of the island.  Circling around to the north side of the island I found the massive bluff towering overhead and a father and son fishing where the cool flow from the spring mixes with the lake.

Walking upstream on the northern flank of the island I admired part of the spring’s flow across some rocks and reached the narrow barred entrance to Island Cave.  You can get a permit to explore this cave and another one if you have a hankering for narrow dark holes.  I happily stayed in the sunlight, strolling off the island over to the Boulder Ridge Trail, although I found a large tree fungus more interesting than the namesake lichen-covered stones.

I then returned eastward on a different trail branch, past the Ha Ha Tonka Post Office.  This stone building was operational from 1872 to 1937, and I was struck by how little clearance there is between its front step and Highway D through the park.  I shot a passing pickup to illustrate why this post office wouldn’t meet modern safety standards!

I then strolled by a large concave bluff wall, called Devil’s Promenade, which had some tricky trail footing and led to the Devil’s Kitchen sinkhole and cave shelter.  This small cave had a skylight in the rear which I photographed both from within the shelter and from up on top.  Yet another parallel to Roaring River, which has its own Devil’s Kitchen, although that nicer rock shelter partially collapsed in my lifetime and is not as inviting as it was in my youth.

The outstanding feature of my final trail segment, the Acorn Trail, was a section of eroded bluff.  Over the course of a few hours I had travelled 7.8 miles on the Colosseum, Dell Rim, Castle, Quarry, Spring, Boulder Ridge, Devil’s Kitchen, and Acorn trails.  I saved the 2.5 mile Dolomite Rock trail and the 6.5 mile back country Turkey Pen Hollow trail for a future visit.  Perhaps I’ll spend a weekend in the area and take them along with some trails at nearby Bennett Spring.

I was quite hot and sweaty by the time I returned to the car, so I stripped off my shirt and washed up.  Finding the parking lot deserted, I took the opportunity to hop in the car and discreetly change out the rest of my clothing.  Wearing fresh duds and with the air conditioner running full blast, I headed back toward Lebanon.  I then zipped down I-44 to Springfield.  I was surprised at all of the new development on the southeast part of town, no doubt driven in part by the entertainment boom in nearby Branson.  I stopped in a T.G.I. Friday’s for a surprisingly good dinner and then headed home.  I’d left Bartlesville at 7 a.m. and was back in town before 10 p.m. after a great day trip.  I eagerly look forward to more of these during the all-too-brief autumn season.

Click here for a slideshow of today’s hike