It was time to go out on my long awaited backpacking trip with a hammock. Plan ‘A’ was for us to go on a quick, one-night visit to Hercules Glades Wilderness. When Ginger decided she wasn’t going, I quickly came up with Plan ‘B’ which transformed the quick one-nighter into a solo three-day, Friday through Sunday trip.
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We took advantage of some days with reasonable weather in January and went hiking in Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area. Busiek is just 20-minutes from Springfield, so for us, it’s a great place for a quick day hike.
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A warm break in the weather sent us scurrying out to get some miles on the trail, this time we opted for Busiek’s Orange Trail.
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We went eclipse backpacking on the Ozark Trail. The eclipse was more popular than I anticipated. My plan had been to wait until seven days before the event and pick a destination. I picked seven days because the weather forecast would be more reliable. Unfortunately, waiting that late meant that everything was already booked (and […]
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July 21 I took Luke for an afternoon kayaking on the James River at Springfield, Missouri [12 pictures].
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The weather this weekend has been wonderful (especially considering it is still February). However, we’ve not had a chance to get away backpacking as we had commitments in town on Saturday. Today we went on a short hike at Busiek, hiking a little over three miles with around 700ft of elevation climbed. Remaining true to our recent experiences, […]
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The next couple of months are going to be very busy for us, and opportunities for getting out hiking or backpacking will be limited. The prospect of a spell of warm Ozarks winter weather gave us a chance to squeeze in a midweek backpacking trip. We rearranged our work schedules and took off to Hercules […]
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We decided to fit in a quick hike at Busiek this weekend. We were originally planning on going backpacking at Hercules Glades, but life (this time in the form of pet-sitting for friends) threw a spanner into that plan. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to test some of the new backpacking gear we’ve bought, […]
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I’d have a whole lot of pack horses by now. This time last year (2015) we thought we were getting back into our hiking / backpacking stride, and we lost it. After about three hikes we stopped. Lots of work came in and we both spent most of the year tied to our desks and […]
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We’re still working on getting back in condition. Today, we wanted to increase the distance and elevation climbed while, not getting too wet and muddy, and not driving too far. We settled on hiking the complete Silver Trail at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area.
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We wanted a fairly quick and dry hike. Ginger didn’t want a repeat of Saturday’s wet and muddy trail.
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I have a confession. We stopped hiking in 2013, it wasn’t deliberate. First we missed our ‘annual’ Spring Break backpacking trip, then we both got tied up with work. I abandoned my semi-retired state, and getting out just faded away. No backpacking, almost no hiking, kayaking or fishing. It all stopped. We made an attempt […]
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I decided to ignore the temperatures in the high nineties and take the kayaks and our youngest daughter out for a short run on the James River. The plan was to put in at the Southwood Access point, go up river and drop back down-river and take-out at Lake Springfield.
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We’ve not been getting out enough of late so we grabbed a chance on Saturday to see some fall color and hike the Pees Hollow Trail at Hercules Glades Wilderness.
The Pees Hollow Trail runs north from the Hercules Tower Trailhead off of Highway 125.
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Eager to find a new sort of ground to cover, we turned our attention to the St. Francois Mountain area for our Spring Break trip. The St. Francois Mountains are an ancient granite mountain range that stands, literally, as an island in the limestone and dolomite former sea beds that are the Ozarks Plateau.
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We hiked the Busiek Red and Yellow trials today – 5 miles and 596 ft. of elevation. We ventured off trail for a while so I could show Ginger some of the things I’d discovered when I backpacked through here in June.
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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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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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We braved the 100°F plus temps to spend some time by Table Rock lake. What we found were hot sunny days, a lot of forgetfulness, rain filled nights, and a villainous squirrel…
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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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With the kids in Kansas City for the weekend we decided to take our kayaks and camp at Berry Bend Campground on Truman Lake.
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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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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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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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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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