ABOUT THE PARK:
Ha Ha Tonka State Park - Missouri State Parks
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 37.973763, -92.762490
Ha Ha Tonka Oak Woodland Natural Area Parking |
TRAIL MAP:
The links on the park site are not working at this time. I had called in advance and requested a copy of the paper map be mailed since the online map is hard to use in planning a hike with multiple trails.
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HIKE DISTANCE: 11.5 miles
THE HIKE:
We crossed the road carefully (55 mph speed limit) to ... |
... the yellow trail where we stayed to the right, then ... |
... right on the red-blazed boardwalk. |
Lake of the Ozarks comes into view higher up. |
Continue along the parking lot ... |
... with an overlook along the way. |
Another overlook before the castle. |
A huge viewing platform that we will be seeing from the other side later. |
On to the Quarry Trail loop. |
Back at the castle retracing through the parking lot back to ... |
... the boardwalk where we had come in from earlier. |
At the point where we had come in on the boardwalk at the beginning we kept right and continued. |
Staying on the trail when the boardwalk ends. |
Right to the spring. |
It's a massive and impressive set of steps! |
All the way at the bottom the largest spring I have ever seen. It's more like a river flowing out of a cavern. |
Continuing on. |
The castle ruins up above with that huge overlook platform to the left. |
We turned right for the Island Trail. |
Zooming in to the overlook at the castle ruins. It's a lot busier up there now which is why we go there early and head towards solitude later. |
There are tons of turkey vultures and apparently they like to roost in the bluffs below the castle ruins. |
Coming up out of the spring area there aren't nearly as many steps as there were going down the other side. |
At the top we turned right on the paved path to ... |
... a left on the steps just before the parking lot. |
Heading to the Boulder Ridge Trail. |
Right on red. We'd be coming back and taking blue later. |
After crossing the park road ... |
... looks like this is the official start of the Boulder Ridge Trail. We went around counter clockwise. |
We took a break at the far end with some partial overlooks of the lake. |
Returning on the other side of the loop are the boulders. |
Crossing back over the road.... |
... then back at that intersection right on blue to finish the Spring Trail. |
At the intersection we turned right through a parking lot and across the road to the right of ... |
... the old post office turning left on the Devil's Kitchen Trail at the entrance drive of another parking lot and picnic shelter. |
Devil's Kitchen Trail. |
Crossing over Post Office Road. |
Devil's Kitchen where it is raining water from above. |
We continued on from Devil's Kitchen wanting to meet up with the Turkey Pen Hollow Trail only to find ... |
... the trail was completely flooded out. I tried bushwhacking to the right to get around but it was a complete swamp in all directions. |
We had no choice but to backtrack. |
Instead we turned left on Post Office Road. |
It was a pleasant, easy road walk for about half a mile. |
At the special use area parking ... |
... left on the Turkey Pen Hollow Trail. I wish there would have been time to do the entire 7 miles because this was my favorite, most remote part of the hike. But only time to do about half of it. |
At the intersection we turned right to loop around counterclockwise. |
Taking a left on the white connector trail to cut off two miles. |
Then a left again back on the Turkey Pen Hollow Trail. |
We turned right on the Acorn Trail where we ran into many others walking that loop. We had seen nobody on the Turkey Pen Hollow Trail. |
Connecting back to the Turkey Pen Hollow Trail ... |
... back to the parking lot. |