Walking at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park

 We enjoyed a lovely morning walking yesterday at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park. 

We walked the loops on the Grassland Trail and Karst Trail. After lunch, we then walked a short distance counter clockwise from the Gans Creek Wild Area - Wagon Wheel Trailhead.

I quickly created a short video clip that you can view on YouTube, Walking at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park.

You can also visit AllTrails to view maps of our routes. 

High Ridge Trail Loop at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park

We enjoyed a lovely morning walk on the High Ridge Trail at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park. We were fortunate to be on the trail before 10:00 am and the ground was still relatively firm. I'm sure later in the day that there were very muddy sections once the temperatures increased a bit.

 

Two days previously we walked a bit on this trail to reach the Terry Turner Memorial Bench before returning to the trail head via the connector trail. You can visit our blog post on this earlier walk.

You can see our route and other details of the walk at AllTrails, Morning hike on High Ridge Trail. The entire loop was 1.8 miles with 233 feet of elevation change.

Walking the High Ridge Trail to find the Terry Turner Memorial Bench

After walking on the Devil's Ice Box Trail, we drove a short distance to the Rock Bridge Memorial State Park office.

We were on a mission to see if we could find the Terry Turner Memorial Bench and staff at the office weren't certain, but thought the bench was located at a high point on the High Ridge Trail. They were correct and we located the bench before returning to our vehicle after a 0.6 mile walk with 115 feet of elevation change.

Terry was a close friend  and classmate of Linda who loved hiking and was active with the Sierra Club. She visited the area many times before it became a state park and returned often to its trails over the years. She passed away too early in life. 

We reached the bench and returned via the connector trail planning to return a couple of days later to complete the entire trail. We did then return and I'll post another video of that portion of the trail here in a few days.

You can also visit AllTrails for a map of our route, Morning hike on High Ridge Trail.

Morning Hike on Devil's Ice Box Trail

We enjoyed a wonderful day hiking on a couple of trails at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park in early March.  We then hiked on a bit of the Bear Creek Trail in northern Columbia, MO later in the afternoon. I'll break out the three hikes into separate short blog posts.

Our first walk was a 40 minute along the Devil's Ice Box Trail for 0.74 miles.

The entire trail is routed on a boardwalk where you cross over the Rock Bridge and then up toward Devil's Ice Box. We were fortunate that the gate at the Ice Box was open allowing walkers to descend into the cave. There have been times when park staff closed off this access to protect bats or other life in the cave.

You can follow our route via AllTrails,  Morning hike on Devil's Ice Box Trail.

Leave a comment below if you know how many steps walkers have to ascend and descend on the trail. For some reason, we didn't think to count and plan to return again to find out.

Hiking the Sinkhole Trail

We enjoyed a warm February day walking two trails at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park a few days ago and previously posted information on the Karst Trail. We also completed a 1.5 mile loop on the Sinkhole trail.

The trail surface was generally fine with some thawing and mud...until we began the decent back toward Devil's Ice Box and the parking lot at the trailhead. This last stretch was ice covered or slick mud on a sloping trail surface. Fortunately, we took it slowly and avoided falling.

You can also find more information about hike on AllTrails at https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-d93591b--251.

Annie, our 1996 Roadtrek, awaited our return from another lovely mid-Missouri outing.

 

Mid-February Walk on the Karst Trail

 

We enjoyed a very pleasant mid-February afternoon walk on the Karst Trail at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park.

You can also visit AllTrails for a map and more details on our walk.

Annie waited patiently while we walked and we were delighted to see her as we returned to the trail head.

Hiking at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park

We were able to take advantage of a beautiful sunny day this past Saturday to visit Rock Bridge Memorial State Park just south of Columbia, MO. The state park offers many miles of trials that are popular with hikers and mountain bikers. 

Our focus was the Grassland Trail and corresponding trail head on the southern edge of the park. 

The Grassland Trail is a two mile loop through pleasant terrain with a number of natural sinkholes. There were quite a few other people out enjoying the weather, including a number with dogs.

The trail head also provides access to the Sinkhole Trail. We took a short break after finishing the Grassland Trail loop and walked across the road from the parking lot to begin the Sinkhole Trail. We ended up walking two miles out and back on a couple of connector trails and the wooded paths were a pleasant contrast to the open fields of the Grassland Trail.