Meador Manor

May 18, 2012

Roaring River (click image for slideshow)

Another Friday off for an unused snow day = another day hike. The coolest place within a day’s round trip was the childhood source of my love for day hikes: Roaring River State Park in Missouri. So by 11 a.m. I was in the lobby of the Emory Melton Inn perched above the park and enjoying the view along with a French Dip in the restaurant. I then parked at the store and began my 7.6 mile hike with a stroll to the hatchery, passing the fisherfolk on the riverside along the way. I admired some vetch and the closed section of the mossy spring pool falls. The open pools at the hatchery were teeming with trout, and the usual bigger trout were to be found in the spring pool. The camera’s GPS had finally locked in, so it was time to hit the trails.

Deer Leap Trail

Deer Leap Trail

I climbed up the hillside on Deer Leap Trail along carved bluffs and huge stone steps laid by the CCC boys. The trail’s many steps were quite a challenge when I was a tot, but after hiking 300 miles a year as of late, they are a breeze. At the top I posed at the hatchery overlook, with a bird flying overhead in one shot. Youngsters below were busy feeding the fish in the big pool, having already enjoyed the thrashing feeding frenzies at the strip pools.

Firetower Trail

Firetower Trail

I backtracked past the upper spring to the Firetower trailhead and ascended to follow the bluffside trail to the fork, where instead of heading across the knob to the old tower, as I’ve done on the last few visits, I instead headed along the narrow high ridge toward the former CCC kitchen, now the nature center. There was some trailside color as I walked along the fairly level ridge before the long and sometimes steep descent, with a Mourning Cloak butterfly alighting on the trail ahead of me. I passed the bluff, where a tree had fallen, and continued the descent toward the nature center.

Riverside Trails

Riverside Trails

I crossed what was once Bass Lake over to the river, clambering out on some rocks for a shot downstream. I followed the riverside trail downstream, a peaceful walk with only a few fly fisherfolk. I passed the remains of the old Bass Lake dam and headed east along the newer connector trail linking the campground to the far trailhead of the Firetower Trail.

Throughout this walk along the north bank of the river, I herded three huge blue herons ahead of me down the river, with them always careful to stay out of camera range. I passed a big tree which had snapped and at the end of my walk, where a short gravel road runs out from Highway F to the river, a butterfly collection awaited me. I managed to catch one in flight with the camera. A sulphur butterfly tried to pose as a leaf, but I was not fooled. I rested by the river a bit and then retraced my steps past the bluff.

Eagle’s Nest Trail

Eagle’s Nest Trail

I then took the low bridge across the river to the sewage irrigation area. The pretty field here is well fertilized! You can’t smell anything, but you definitely don’t want to hike through here, especially when the big sprayers start up. The eastern trailhead for the Eagle’s Nest trail is at the edge of the irrigation zone and leads west up the mountain. Soon it splits into an upper branch which leads up to the ridge and across to the Mountain Maid’s homestead and dead ends at Highway 112. I took the lower branch, which descends to parallel the river below alongside the campground. Where the river turns away and the trail leads past a hillside creek, they’ve put up a sign to divert you into the campground. But I ignored that and continued on the hillside trail paralleling the separate little campground over to Highway F.

River Trail

River Trail

I then crossed on the river bridge to the old CCC river trail with its riverside bluffs. I passed white rock walls and enjoyed the triple treat of bluff, trail, and river. A Spangled Fritillary posed on a leaf for me and a Tiger Swallowtail followed suit. Following their lead, I posed too, but seated on the bluff instead of hanging from a leaf. The bluff here is notched due to the erosion of a middle layer of stone, making a scenic spot. In one spot you can shelter under the overhang.

Devil’s Kitchen Trail

Devil’s Kitchen Trail

The trail led to the CCC lodge and I crossed over to the Devil’s Kitchen Trail. I crossed the short walkway at the south trailhead and began to ascend the knob. I reached the small cave at the north end and then headed back south past the knob on the knob. The trail made another steeper rise as it crested the top, where a fallen tree was hosting some fungi. On the far side were tall pine trees with pretty bark. I tumbled down the logs which hold back the trail erosion on this side of the hill as trucks roared past, climbing the big north hill on Highway 112 out of the park.

The trail descended to the big bluff which has the partially collapsed stone room which is its namesake. The old entrance was sealed by a collapse during my lifetime, so I made my way around to the side where you can climb up to the roof and drop in through the top or peer in from the side. I didn’t feel like jumping down into the kitchen, so I peered in through the end and was startled to see a big buzzard inside. I’m sure glad I didn’t pop in on him! He helpfully flapped out onto the roof to pose for me. I bid the bluff adieu and made my way down to the river, where two boys were playing in the same pool where I lost a treasured fake jewel in my distant childhood. Maybe they found it for me. From there it was a short walk to the park store to conclude my 7.6 mile hike.

Along with the oodles of photos, I shot some video while at the park.

Neosho’s Big Spring Park

Big Spring Park in Neosho

I drove over to the campground where I washed up and changed clothes in one of the showers. Refreshed, I drove through Cassville, disappointed to find that The Rib restaurant is closed again. So I drove on to Neosho, where TripAdvisor recommended Sam’s Cellar. It was located on courthouse square and when I opened the door the smell of beer washed over me along with uninhibited voices from below. Neither appeals to me, so I retreated three blocks to Big Spring Park, where I found an attractive waterfall.

Neosho means clear or abundant water, fitting since Big Spring’s flow is almost 900,000 gallons per day and is only one of nine springs in the city. The park is pleasant, although a neglected odd amphitheater on one wall of the former quarry is a bit strange with steps leading up to an abandoned area. You can walk down to where Big Spring flows out of the rock on the west side of the hollow. I liked the styling of the big wading pool, which reminded me of the Neptune pool at San Simeon, featured in the climax of the film version of The Great Gatsby.

The east side of the old quarry has a bluff and small cave. There is supposed to be a large cave in one end of the park, sealed up by the townsfolk in the late nineteenth century after some children were briefly lost in it. The first chamber has been found and is 125 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Some believe a much larger cavern lies beyond. What fun for local kids to have a mystery cave in their park!

I found a marker remembering the local Rocketdyne plant, which built rockets used in space missions through 1968. Located on 2,000 acres of the former Fort Crowder, the plant is now Premier Turbines, which repairs and overhauls airplane engines. Just across the street from the park is a ceramic tile mural on the side of the former Safeway store. It was commissioned and designed by local artist Lawrence J. “Larry” Sanchez, who had studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and won a mural-design contest sponsored by Safeway Stores.

Spring River Overlook

Spring River Overlook

I had a quiet and relaxing dinner at El Charro in Neosho and then drove west, stopping at Twin Bridges State Park for the overlook of the Spring River. The sun was setting as I drove into Bartlesville after a nice relaxing day in the Ozarks.

Click here for a slideshow from this day hike

Friday: Tulsa Wildflowers

Brookside Wildflowers (click image for slideshow)

It was another three-day May weekend, made possible by unused snow days in the warmest winter on record. On Friday I went to Tulsa with my friend and colleague Betty Henderson. We had lunch down there and drove to the wildflower patch in the Brookside neighborhood just off Peoria, where beautiful poppies and bachelor buttons were on offer. There was a light rain as we snapped our photographs, so we cancelled our planned visit to Oxley Nature Center and went to the Marvel’s The Avengers instead, which spent more on effects than it did on the script.

Saturday: Yardwork and Table Mound

The next day the rainy forecast was belied by sunny skies, allowing me to spend time outside Meador Manor. I tackled the big pile of River Birch branches I’d piled beside the house over the past few months, forming four bundles I laid at the curb for pickup. I then cleaned out the gutters of the tree’s debris for the fourth time this spring. I noticed a bunch of branches had accumulated on the roof valley, so I climbed up there too and they joined the streetside bundles. My, but that big tree keeps me busy.

I had a big lunch at Garfield’s and the still-sunny skies lured me to hike 8.25 miles along the eastern shore of Elk City Lake, which is an hour’s drive north of Bartlesville. I’ve hiked all of the designated hiking trails there multiple times, but it had been two years since I’d hiked the best trail, Table Mound, in the spring. As it turned out, this day I would also hike the Green Thumb and Post Oak nature trails, visit the outlet channel, walk part of a previously unhiked mountain bike trail, and bushwhack up and around Table Mound. Not a bad day at all!

Circling My Prey

I drove over the dike and discovered the lake was very high, with the floodplain on either side of the roadway inundated. Taking my cue from the turkey vultures circling above, I used county roads to circumnavigate Table Mound on the lake’s eastern shore. I passed the high old smokestack of the former United Kansas Portland Cement Company at Le Hunt on the mound’s east side. The smokestack is crumbling away and one of these days shall fall, leaving only the crumbling low remains of the site, visible in satellite images but hidden away at ground level behind locked gates.

Table Mound Trail – Bluff Section

Table Mound Trail (click image for slideshow)

I drove up to the overlook above the dam and set off north down Table Mound Trail, passing trees growing in the big cracks in the limestone bluff with huge chunks broken away below, where the lower part of the trail ran alongside the base of the bluff. Wild foxglove grew by the trailside. I reached the north end of the high part of the trail where there is a nice panorama of fields to the northwest, and then took the steep dive down through a crack in the bluff to the lower part of the trail and posed in one of the rock rooms formed by the cracked limestone.

A tree looked liked it was struggling to part the rocks as I walked beside huge weathered chunks of limestone, with the green leaves of the trees providing relief. Trees framed views of the bluff and leaned to contrast with the stone. I reached the overhang camp with its convenient stone seats, of which I took advantage. Farther south along the bluff I passed under another projecting shelf. A huge stone sandwich was beside the trail, with solid stone buns and crumbled stone like chopped beef between.

The trail passed under a huge stone slab supported by a leaning pillar of stone, which was more striking from the far side. More sandwiched layers appeared on the bluff above me and a darker top layer bulged out over crumbling older slabs. Then I slid through a narrow crack in the bluff, the tightest squeeze along the trail. At one point the straight steep bluff wall contrasted to a crooked tree, and then the bluff began to diminish while the trees topped out.

I reached the end of the high bluffs at the rock walls which mark the unheralded intersection with the Post Oak trail, which parallels the Table Mound trail but runs along the top edge of the bluff. If you ever want to make a loop out of the Table Mound trail’s most impressive section, climb up at this point to the rock walls and take the Post Oak trail back to the overlook. If I were in charge of the trail system, I’d make this one big loop with the remainder of the Table Mound trail as an appendage winding south along the shore to the camping area.

Table Mound Trail – Lake Shore Section

Lake Shore Section of Table Mound Trail

Soon the trail crossed the road and I strode out on one peninsula to gauge the lake level. On my return a troop of boy scouts passed by, headed north. I found the low point in the trail, where it crosses one of the narrow inlets, flooded out. So I bushwhacked around to the east, fording the stream beside a felled barkless tree with its corkscrew grain.

The trail gave a high open view of the dam to the north, then rounded the bend and provided a view of the partially flooded campground to the south. Many of the stays with my grandparents and their gathered children’s families here in the 1970s featured high water as the lake restrained the flooding Elk River.

Campground and Green Thumb Trail

I reached the end of the Table Mound Trail, finding the scout troop had camped in the higher Timber Road area of the campground, above flooded Sunset Point. I decided to walk the Green Thumb Nature Trail, the one I dragged my parents and my patient late Aunt Mildred on many a time well over 30 years ago. I crossed the bridge over the first stream and descended the hillside with its embedded logs. The streams were flowing from recent rains and a small clearing had more wild foxglove. The trail climbed to the limestone cap, crossed by crevices, and soon I was bounding back down to the Table Mound trail for the return north.

Retracing Northward to the Outlet Channel

On the north return trek I glanced back to see a powerboat zipping above the flooded jetties. The skies were lowering and a very light rain fell, barely tapping me beneath the trees. I reached the bluff area and then decided to not follow the trail around the north end of the mound, but instead bushwhacked my way downslope, lured by the roar of the outlet channel. They had the outlet going full blast, with water crashing out of the 16 foot diameter conduit into the walls of the stilling basin, and I shot some video.

Eagle Rock Mountain Bike Trail

I had passed the entrance to the Eagle Rock mountain bike trail and there were no bikers about, so I opted to walk part of that trail system for the first time. It led north beside the outlet channel and I followed the Hillside trail, a mown path which curved around the north base of Table Mound into the woods to follow an old closed road eastward before ascending partway up the slope to turn back westward.

Bushwhacking Up Table Mound

I did not wish to return to the outlet channel and bushwhack up to Table Mound trail from there. Instead I began to bushwhack up the north side of the mound until I reached the bluff and followed it along the eastern side of the mound until it shortened where I could clamber up to a lagoon beside the start of the Table Mound trail. A sign by the overlook showed the design of the outlet channel I’d visited earlier. I shot a panorama from the overlook and then decided to walk south along the top of the bluff on the Post Oak Nature Trail.

Post Oak Nature Trail

The Post Oak trail runs parallel to the adjacent Table Mound trail below at the base of the bluff. Every so often you can peer over the side and see the blue blazed trail below. I followed it to the intersection with the Table Mound Trail and then followed it east to a glade, which I then exited to return to the bluff and overlook. I’d hiked 8.25 miles and was ready for dinner.

Sunset

Sunset at the Overlook

I dined at El Pueblito in Independence, followed by the perquisite dipped cone at the Dairy Queen. Then I drove back west to the overlook for the sunset. I shot a golden hour panorama of the overlook building and the view out over the lake in the golden hour and of the sunset. Clouds scudded across the face of the setting sun and I ventured north on the Table Mound trail to shoot a panorama over the field using my new camera’s “Vivid Mode”. Ribbon clouds across the face of the sun reminded me of the bands of Jupiter. At the close of the day I headed home across the floodplain, illuminated by the sunset.

Today was a fun if familiar hike and I again count myself lucky to have such a nice trail within an hour’s drive. I continue to be please by the photos from my new Canon camera, and I’ve learned to patiently check that the GPS is locked in so each shot is geotagged. I still have to fool the exposure a great deal, but with some tweaking in Photoshop Elements it all turns out fine.

Click here for a slideshow from the Saturday day hike