Tagged: Hiking

Trip report: Backpacking in Hercules Glades – September 2012

Taking advantage of a long weekend, we took Lanie with us on a three day backpacking trip to Hercules Glades. Our plan was to map some of the western trails with the GPS, try to find the Spring we think Rock Spring Trail is named after, and show Lanie the falls.

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Trip report: Memorial Day weekend backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness

Memorial Day weekend 2011. We took advantage of the long weekend to go backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness and spent three nights in the wilderness.

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Trail Map: Sac River Trail, Springfield Missouri

A map of the Sac River Trail, Springfield Missouri

The Sac River Trail is 3 miles North of the I44 at Springfield on Highway 13. It’s primarily a biking trail, but it’s our ‘go to’ place for a quick hike. You just need to keep an ear out for fast approaching bikes and step out of the way.

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Hiking Huaraches – My hiking ‘boots’

A muddy foot in a pair of home-made hiking huaraches

If one thing is likely to start a passionate gear discussion, it’s hiking and backpacking footwear. I’m in a minority on this subject and I know it. Why? If you look closely at any of our backpacking or hiking pictures, you’ll see I’m almost always apparently barefoot…

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Trip report: Two days solo backpacking in Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area

With a couple of spare days I decided to fit in a quick solo backpacking trip. To save on gas I stayed close to Springfield, backpacking around Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area. I found a second cemetery and an abandoned vehicle I didn’t know were there.

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Trip report: Three days backpacking in the Piney Creek Wilderness – June 2012

Photograph of an MSR Mutha Hubba Tent without Flysheet camped at the mouth of Piney Creek and Buck Hollow

School’s out for the summer, so there’s no school run to worry about. Lanie’s staying with her grandparents for a few days. The big kids are old enough to be left home alone. What better opportunity to get in a few days backpacking?

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Places to go: Piney Creek Wilderness

Right off the bat, the most unusual thing about this Wilderness area is that its boundaries circumscribe the entire drainage of Piney Creek. So you always start on a ridge and go down into the valley of the same creek system. There isn’t a lot of up and down all day hiking. Once you’re down in the valley it’s flat. Piney Creek opens into Table Rock Lake on the east, allowing access to and from the lake…

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Trip report: Backpacking at Piney Creek Wilderness – April 2012

A girl, woman, and man sitting on a log for a picture during a spring backpacking trip in Piney Creek Wilderness in the southern Missouri Ozarks.

One of the more problematic aspects of an outdoor-loving lifestyle is that you have to either find someone to take your kids while you go play or you have to bring your kids with you. We finally have two kids old enough to leave at home. But our youngest is still a bit young so we’ve been working on getting her interested in the idea of going on backpacking trips with us

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Ozarks Hikes: Sac River Trail

Girl sitting in the middle of the Sac River Trail in the fall, surrounded by trees.

There’s a little-known trail just north of Springfield, within the city limits, that will give you miles of moderately rugged hiking and exposure to streams, woods, and open fields. The Springfield-Greene County Park Board owns the 300 acres that contain well over 8 miles of natural surface single track. The trail is rocky in places, muddy in places, and winds back and forth an amazing amount. There are no steep climbs but the trail goes up and down enough, and has many small seasonal stream crossings and plenty rugged rocks to give you a decent hiking workout.

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Sac River Trail – March 26, 2012

Strike while the iron is hot, they say. The weather was perfect and we just got back from a week’s backpacking trip to the St. Francois Mountains. We were eager to get a move on! Plus, the 12yo and 16yo wanted to get some exercise. Directly after school we filled water bottles and piled into […]

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Trip report: Backpacking the Berryman Trail – 2011

Man and woman wearing backpacks while hiking the Berryman Trail in Mark Twain National Forest.

With the kids away for Spring Break with their father for a week we decided it was time for our next backpacking trip. The children had to be dropped off and picked up from St Louis, so that focused our attention on the Berryman Trail. Some people do this trail in a day, bikes do […]

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Trip report: backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness – December 2010

Our first backpacking experience The kids were with their dad in Chicago. The forecast was for unseasonably warm temperatures. We had backpacking gear we’d not fully tried out yet. It had been nearly six weeks since our last camping trip. It was time. We were ready to go on our first backpacking trip!

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Trip report: Hercules Glades day hike with MDC

Hikers stopped for lunch at the Long Creek Falls, Hercules Glades Wilderness

We wanted to backpack in the Hercules Glades Wilderness, but we’d never been there. We decided to reconnoiter the Wilderness first, in preparation for our first ever backpacking trip. We found out that  MDC’s Springfield Nature Center was organizing a ‘Hiking Club’ trip to Hercules Glades, so we signed up to go. The group is limited […]

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