Location: Wayne County in Missouri passing through a portion of the Mark Twain National Forest, Wappapello Lake U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project, and bordering Sam A. Baker State Park at the northern most trailhead.

Distance: 31.1 miles as noted on the Ozark Trail brochure. There is also a trail from the campground within Sam A. Baker State Park that connects to the northern trailhead at PA#48 along Hwy 143. You can also connect to the trails within Sam A. Baker State Park and there is also a connecting trail to Lake Wappapello State Park near mile 29.4 as you count mileage from the north.

Water: Water is available at many stream crossings and from the St. Francis River. Many of the side streams could be dry over the summer months so you would need to plan ahead and check with the Wappapello Lake office prior to proceeding in dry weather.

Parking: Official overnight parking is available at many public access points provided by the Corps of Engineers. Several are not noted on the map/brochure so it would be good to get a map from the Corps office with some notes. There are good parking areas at the beginning at the north end at PA# 48 at the border with Sam A. Baker State Park right on Hwy 143, around the mid-point (mile post 16.5) at PA#60 right on Hwy 67 one mile south of where Hwy 67 crosses the St. Francis River, and at the current ending point (mile 31.1) on Hwy 172, approximately 1.5 miles east of Hwy 67. There are several other Public Access points if you are wanting to break up your hike into shorter segments.

Comments - 8 Dec '06 - I hiked with 5 others from the 0.0 mile point at PA #48 along Hwy 143 to the 16.5 mile at PA #60 along Hwy 67. It was 5 degrees as we started out around 8AM proceeding south along the trail. The trail was marked well. We were close to the river for much of the first mile and there was some flood debris on the trail. The trail had been flooded the weekend before from heavy rains in the area. The trail goes through some lowland forest and along the borders of some soybean/corn fields as it makes it way to the Hwy 34 bridge. Just before getting to the bridge the trail rises and goes through an outcropping of very weathered limestone. Due to the temperature, we started seeing a lot of frost flowers around the road right-of-way along Hwy 34. The trail goes under the bridge but you would have to go over the roadway if the trail was flooded. On the south side of the highway the trail has been re-routed with a loop to the southwest to avoid some flooding and backwater. We did have a wet-crossing on Clark Creek along this re-routed section. Another public access point has also been provided along Hwy 34 and we passed a sign indicating the cutoff trail to that point (PA #50?). As we continued on around the re-route we pass another access point at the Hixson Cemetary (PA#52). We stopped at the old cemetary to see the old gravestones of the Wynn and Black family back into the 1800s. We continued on east and walked by a tree with a very large girth - a beautiful tree! The trail took us back along the river for a ways then cut directly up a hill due west then south through some Private Property that had a lot of ATV usage. We hiked through the private property for about a 1/4 mile. It is clearly marked with signs. In the next quarter mile we dropped back down into the flood plain and passed mile 6.65 at PA #53. From here we hiked through the flood plain for over a mile. We finally crossed a small creek within the flood plain with a marker pointing to the right. The there was a lot of flood debris here and we lost contact with the trail. We were near a bend in the river and it was apparent that this area had been flooded. We looked for another marker and realized that we had gone too far then took a bearing and did a bee-line back to the trail over a small hill into a creek where the trail was located. The trail continued southeast from here then south on to mile 10.45 at PA # 56. From this point the trail headed southeast again along a ridge top and we ran into Corps Ranger Dick Chenoweth. He informed us of a wet crossing coming up at the Hwy FF bridge. We continued on the trail but found the trail flooded at two different points before we reached the FF bridge. We made the decision to head due west and ended up walking on Hwy FF to the southside of the bridge at mile 14.05 at PA #56. From this point we continued on south, there is another short re-route before reaching Hwy FF where the trail goes up and over the ridge top and down into a creek valley that the trail follows right up to the 16.5 mile point at PA #60 on Hwy 67. This was a fairly moderate hike today, despite the distance. We noticed some ATV usage on the trail where they shouldn't be but that is getting to be a norm since there aren't enough ranger to patrol the backcountry.

Comments - 9 Dec '06 - It was a little warmer this morning, about 17 degrees as we started hiking after getting our vehicles shuttled into place. We continued hiking north to south so began at the trailhead on Hwy 67, PA #60. About a 1/4 mile east of the trailhead the trail splits and there is an east loop and a west loop that go on south to Hwy F. We had info that the east loop was flooded yet and that we should use the west loop which we did. The east loop gets close to the St. Francis River but the west loop that we hiked stays through the upland forest and is pretty much a walk in the woods. What we found along this trail is that there are no switchbacks, the trails go up and over the hills in pretty much a straight line. I guess that is OK for the horses but it sure made a long tiring day hiking this piece of trail. We didn't have an re-routes on the piece of trail all the way down to Hwy 172 at the 31.1 mile trailhead. However we did find a couple of signs with some wrong mileage. Just south of the 28.4 mile point at PA #68 there is a sign that says there is 4.8 miles to go to Hwy 172 but if you look at the map (our GPS tracking confirmed the map) there is only about 2.5 miles to go. The again at the junction with the trail that goes to Lake Wappapello State Park there is a sign that there is 3.7 miles to go to Hwy 172 but it should be less than 2 miles. Our GPS tracking confirmed the map on this one too. We finished the hike in good time despite the trails up and over the hills. The trail is laid out for horseback riding and we have sent a report with suggestions and sign problems that we ran into.

Maps: Map/brochure of this section is available from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Wappapello Lake Project Office - 573-222-8562. Ask to get the re-routes marked on your map. The USGS 7-1/2 minute quads for this section include the Patterson, Hendrickson, Greenville, and Greenville SW.