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November 7, 2005
Hiking in Hercules Glades
This Saturday my husband and I went hiking in Hercules Glades. It's part of the Mark Twain National Forest, near Bradleyville, MO (about an hour and 15 minute drive from the south side of Springfield, MO). We have been having usually warm weather for this time of year -- I think it was in the upper 70's -- and all the fall colors are out, so we figured it would be a perfect time to go.
We hiked part of the Coy Bald trail, which begins on the back side of wilderness area, off of Highway 160. It is less developed and has fewer trails than the main access, but fewer people go there so we figured we would give it a try! We saw a few people packing up their campsite when we first arrived, and one bow-hunter out of the trail -- other than that, it was just us.
The area really nice for hiking because there are there wierd little "glades" interspersed with the normal deciduous forest. The land in the glades is really rocky, so no trees grow there except cedars. The pictures here are in a glade on the top of one of the hills -- there was a pretty good view since there weren't any big trees.
After hiking on the trail for a while, we decided to go "off-road" and basically started wandering through the woods. Thank goodness we had our little GPS, or else we probably would have been stranded out there for days. =) We didn't have topo maps of the area, which proved problematic (we found the stream, but we were on a bluff 40 feet above it -- that's no good). Knitting update: I worked on the Midwest Moonlight scarf on the car ride there and back -- I just joined the final ball of yarn -- 3/4 done! If this warm weather holds out it will be ready in time for the first frost.
Posted by zarah at November 7, 2005 10:00 AM
Comments
What a breath-taking view!!!
Posted by: Jeanie at November 7, 2005 6:58 PM
