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St. Louis Outdoor Adventures
(opens in a new tab)Dedicated to providing the best information about amazing outdoor destinations & experiences within a 3 hour drive of St. Louis.
Amazing adventures, close to home.
It had been around 25 years since I last paddled the Black River. I'd been wanting to get back to it for years now and finally got back to it on August 30th with 3 friends. We left St. Louis at 8:45AM and didn't get home until 10:30pm. It was quite the adventure...I didn't have much time to plan the trip so I just worked with Google's Gemini AI to figure out a good 8-10 mile float on which we could self-shuttle our own boats. At about 10pm the night before, we came up with doing Bearcat Getaway to Highway K Campground for a 9.5 mile trip. I knew they had had huge flooding a month ago so I wasn't really sure what kind of shape the river would be in but all involved were experienced paddlers, so I just figured we'd handle whatever came along.So, off we head to Highway K Campground, the pull out. There's no cell service there so we can't coordinate with our other car. The very large gravel bar was very loose from the flooding so I kept my minivan away from that gravel. After a bit of driving around, we managed to meet up with the rest of our group, found a good spot to leave their car, loaded up their boats on my trailer, and off we headed to Bearcat.On the map, it looked like a pretty simple shuttle between the two but it turns out the road from Annapolis to Bearcat involved 6.1 miles of a gravel road. Not ideal for a minivan pulling a trailer but not too bad. We make it to Bearcat and the "office" (a VERY rundown set of bathrooms) in unoccupied. Gemini said we could pay a day use fee but we couldn't find anyone to pay. I'm not a fan of just leaving my minivan on private property without permission. We eventually found some people on a beach and they said they thought there was a house up the hill from the entrance where the Bearcat proprietors lived. We managed to find someone to take our money and give us a official thingy for the dashboard headed back to the campground. . After a quick dip in the best feeling water I ever remember (it was 95 degrees that day), off we went at 1:45 pm.The black river is known for having crystal clear, spring-fed water. It's not as cold as the Current River but similar in most ways. Lots of large gravel bars, a mix of deeper pools, shallow class I rapids, and wide, slow flowing fairly shallow spots. The Black does go from the highest area in Missouri to the lowest area so there's a good gradient to keep the water moving but still very beginner friendly with quite a few spots where we had to hop out of our kayaks to pull them over shallow rapid sections. My pictures don't really do it justice (and my phone died half way through) but it is a very beautiful area. It's hard to go wrong with crystal clear water, towering bluffs, bottomland forest, and largely undisturbed nature. It is wider and more open than the Meramec or the Current River. But largely typical of a Missouri Ozark stream.There were two good rope swings, about 5 different jet boats, quite a few people enjoying the river at road-accessible gravel bars, but we mostly had the river to ourselves. The Black River doesn't have nearly as much boat traffic as the Current, the Jack Fork, or the Meramec and its feeder streams (The Huzzah and Courtois). My watch says we paddled 11.44 miles and were on the river for 4 hours 47 minutes. Between the 2.5 hour drive to/from St. Louis, figuring out the Bearcat thing, and driving the 6 mile dirt road 3 times for shuttling, it made for a very long day. Totally worth it, but I'd rather do it as an overnight and camp the night before so we could get on the water earlier in the morning and get home at a better time.
Brentwood has done a spectacular job turning what was once a bothersome flooding liability of a 1-mile section of Deer Creek into the Greg Fox Memorial Wetland. I made an unplanned visit today and was blown away by how much it has changed this summer. SO MANY wildflowers are in full bloom right now and that has attracted many beautiful pollinators (we used to call these bugs but I guess that had negative connotations) and the many beautiful birds that like to feast on them.During my visit is was drizzling and relatively cool but do be warned there is no shade so I'd avoid visiting during peak sun on a hot day. From experience, I can relay that it will be much less charming.
I haven't been able to kayak this year due to a shoulder injury that won't go away (I think I hurt it in a snowboarding fall after Xmas). But it seems canoeing doesn't hurt it at all so we played hookie yesterday and paddled Meramec State Park to Sand Ford with friends. Found the best rope swing I've ever swung (though the video makes it seem slow and easy, it wasn't). Was wonderful to get back on the river. Good time had by all. Saw bald eagle, a green heron, several great blue herons, a deer, 48 turtles, and more.
With this extended cold spell, I needed a bit of beauty to dwell on this afternoon so I went and looked for a series of photos I hadn't yet processed and posted. These are from a great trip my wife and I took in June of 2021 on the Meramec from Pacific Palisades Access to Allenton Access. The middle three miles of this section has some really beautiful rock formations I always enjoy. I think I'm going to try and do this section on Sunday when it will be warm but I'm hoping there will still be a good bit of snow around for a different type of scenery than I've seen on this section.
Sometimes, we can forget just how magnificent a winter hike can be.
A truly spectacular day on one of my favorite sections of the Meramec River, Blue Springs Conservation Area to Meramec State Park. One benefit of the draught we've had for the last 7 weeks is the Meramec's water is crystal clear now in this section.
Hot today. But was perfect temperature paddling the Meramec with lots of swim breaks.
I visited Maramec Springs Park yesterday while paddling a top section of the Meramec River (yes, spelled differently). It's a really beautiful place. Frequent trout releases make it a fisherman's mecca but it has plenty of great stuff for all.
One of my favorite hikes is the Mooner's Hallow Trail in St. Francis State Park. It follows along Coonville Creek to a beautiful cascading waterfall. Yesterday, I was short on time and just hiked 2.2 miles out and back along the creek but the 3-mile loop is great too.