Finally, a day just right for Russ and I to get back out in the woods and explore! The weatherman said the high would be around 82°.  Not bad for Labor Day weekend! It was so hot this summer, too hot for hiking, especially after Russ had been working out in that heat. Then there was his hand issue, which is still a bit of a mystery but steroids and anti-inflammatory meds seem to be helping some. So we set out for Sandstone Canyon Trail at Don Robinson State Park in Cedar Hill, MO. The park opened in January 2017. Several friends have hiked it and said it’s great. The reviews on alltrails were good, mentioning the box canyon, caves, waterfalls, creeks…they sold me!

The first .50 mile was paved, with a wheelchair accessible trail going around it to cut down on the elevation. At the end of the paved trail is a nice pavilion with picnic tables. I don’t like walking on pavement but it was a pretty walk.

 

The first mile or so was just walking through the trees, nothing spectacular except for a huge funnel spiderweb. I tried and tried to get a picture of the whole thing where you could tell what it was, but it was just too tall.

 

Eventually we came to the beginning of the canyon area. The trail was really steep going down and I was really glad it wasn’t muddy! At the bottom was a creek and as I started to continue on to the right Russ spotted through the trees across the creek, what he thought might have been a broken up concrete bridge/road. He has to know what unnatural things are when we come across them so we left the trail, crossed the creek and explored. Russ decided that these huge slabs of concrete, some laying helter skelter on one side of the creek and in the creek, and others still standing going back over 100 feet to the canyon wall, must have been a dam. My pictures don’t tell the story very well as there was so much vegetation it was difficult to get good pictures. We have done a little research and can’t find any information about it. It’s a massive amount of concrete and we are as puzzled by what it really is, why it was built as we are by how in the heck did they get all of that concrete down there! So this thing is well over 100 feet long (if it were all still standing), about 2 feet thick and about 15 feet tall. That’s a lot of concrete!

Russ would have been happy to go home then! But the hike kept getting better and better. Several creek crossings, not much water…piece of cake. In places we were right next to the canyon wall. The closer to the canyon walls we were, the trail was mostly sand. That was nice to walk on! Most of the time the trail was along the rim of the canyon. It was beautiful but again so much vegetation my pictures were terrible. We saw several places that would have been awesome waterfalls had it not been so dry. 

Then…The Canyon! This one is huge and beautiful and I can get some good pictures! I spot a trail down at the bottom and tell Russ we need to figure out how to get down there. Not far away there was a side trail going down to the bottom of the canyon! Oh boy!

 

It was even better than I thought it would be! And bigger! I’ll just let the pictures tell this part of the story.

Back on the trail there was an old crumbled down cabin, slowly sliding into a creek. 

By the time we climbed out of the canyon, we’d been out in the woods over 3 hours and had only gone a little over 2 miles! We tend to take a long time when we explore, we still had 2 more miles to go but Russ’s back was done. We took a shortcut trail and came across a nifty natural stone bridge. Met a couple & they told us about a few other good hiking places. And I found a funky woodpecker tree. Shortcuts are good things!

I’m still amazed by the beauty I keep finding in my own state…Missouri! I can’t wait to go back and see what we missed. I’m definitely going back in the winter. My friend Scott sent me these pictures today from his hike in January. The temperature was 8°…yikes! I don’t think I’m that crazy, but I love winter hiking!