More Pictures of Klepzig Mill

In my last entry I posted only a few pictures of my trip. Normally I'm a bit embarrassed about my photography so I don't put very many pictures in a post. But I've received some requests for more pictures of the mill so here they are.



The mill owner originally built a concrete dam across the shut-in creek (a real travesty since it's such a beautiful spot!) which forced the water down this raceway toward the mill wheel. The dam is now gone. There are just a few places where you can see residual concrete stuck to the rocks.

Since it was springtime and the leaves were out the view of the mill is somewhat obscured from the across the creek. However there is a nice photo during leaf-off time at this post by another blogger, Jeff Moore, at his blog, Missouri Backpacking

Klepzig Mill

I'm continuing my quest to see the sights I've been meaning to see here in Missouri before I move to Pennsylvania. This past weekend I returned to the Current River section of the Ozark Trail to visit Klepzig Mill. I had heard that it was one of the nicest spots along the trail. It's the site of an old grist and saw mill located on a shut-in creek.


This was an out-and-back trip. The map above shows the path I took. I started at Powder Mill, where the Current River and Blair Creek section meet. Klepzig Mill is at the very bottom of the map, a distance of about 6 miles. I arrived late on Friday and hiked in the dark for about a mile or so. I slept on the ground with my poncho pitched above me. During the night it rained but I stayed dry. During the night I was awakened by some rustling in the grass as some little critter was coming toward me. I shined my light and saw a little armadillo scurry away. That's a first for me -- to see a live armadillo (as opposed to a dead one on the highway).

Spring is in full swing and the Ozarks have exploded with grass and leaves and flowers. The air was full of the scent of flowers.

The hiking was pretty easy and the weather was great.

Klepzig mill is on a shut-in creek. That means a place where a creek is confined to a narrow channels because of a large rock formation. I have a bunch of pictures but none really do the place justice. Here are the best ones.


While there I had a swim in the shut-in creek. It was cold but very refreshing.

After hiking back to my car I drove a few miles to another place I've been wanting to see: Blue Spring. It's one of many springs in Missouri but probably the most picturesque. It's apparently 310 feet from where the water comes out of the cliff up to the surface of the pool. This depth, combined with dissolved minerals in the water give the distinct color. The spring seems quite still but in fact the flow of water is significant. A good-sized creek begins it's life at this spring.

Floating the Eleven Point

It turns out that I will soon be moving from Missouri to Pennsylvania. So I'm trying to see as much of the Ozarks as I can before I leave. I had never hiked the Eleven Point section of the Ozark Trail. This trail follows the Eleven Point river so I decided that rather than hiking it I would take a 2-day canoe trip down the river and camp overnight on a sand bar and see the same territory from a different perspective.

I rented a canoe from Richard's Canoe Rental. Richard moved out from St Louis in the early 70s and he and his daughter run the place. The eleven point river is not as popular a destination as the Current or Jacks Fork rivers apparently. That means that it's much less crowded although some people I know who have floated both claim that the Eleven Point is nicer.

The eleven point river is spring fed, and not just from one spring. There are many springs along the river, some of which are quite impressive and add significantly to the flow. This one is called Roaring Spring because of the sound it makes as the water rushes out from the rocks a few feet above the level of the river.


Springtime in the Ozarks is a beautiful time. I was just in time to see the bluebells in their full glory.


In the evening I pulled my canoe onto a gravelly sandbar and built a fire from drift wood (very plentiful). It was really delightful. It's early enough in the spring that the insects aren't really out and so the night was quiet. The sky was clear and the view of the stars was perfect. I fell asleep looking up at them as my fire burned down to embers.

On thing I keep forgetting is that when you are camped near a river the morning dew is pretty thick. I brought a warm synthetic quilt because I was afraid it might get cold. In the morning the quilt was quite wet on top (although I stayed dry). I'm glad I didn't bring the down quilt. When the sun came out I draped the quilt over a nearby branch and it was soon dry and ready to be packed up.

On of the great things about these Missouri rivers is the bluffs that overlook the river. I took several pictures but this was the only one that turned out the way I wanted.

I floated about 30 miles in all. From Thomasville to a boat launch called Whitten Access. I had a really nice time. I'm glad I got to experience this before I leaving this fine state.

Bald Knob

Classes don't start until after the MLK holiday and I just finished some work on a paper so I decided to do a quick overnight trip. It's been very cold recently which has kept me indoors. It's warmer now and I wanted to get out and do some camping in the snow before it melts. I went back to Buford Mountain where mydaughter and went last year. I was hoping there would be significant snow on the mountain and nice views of the nearby valley blanketed in snow. I was a bit disappointed on both counts but had a nice trip anyway.

It has been so cold this past week that I figured I might be the first person to hike since the snow fell. So I was surprised to see someone else's footprints on the trail, indicating that some stouthearted soul had braved the single digit temperatures. It looked like he had brought a dog along. However after a few hundred yards the man's footprints disappeared but the dog's continued. So maybe this dog (or coyote more likely) is a hiking enthusiast. His tracks seemed to follow the trail.

I hiked up at night and camped near the top, not far from where Natalie and I had camped before. In the morning I decided to hike farther down the trail. Interestingly the coyote, or whatever it was, apparently had the same idea a few days before. So my tracks look like I took a dog along for the hike.

My goal was to hit all the peaks in the Buford Mountain Conservation Area. In particular I wanted to get to Bald Knob, a glade on top of one of the peaks, that I hoped would provide some views.

Bald Knob is a mass of large stones that looks nice in the snow, even when it's only an inch deep as on this occasion. Previous hikers have built a cairn to mark where the trail continues since you couldn't make out a trail on the glade itself. I decided not to continue around (I had a meeting in the early afternoon that I had to get back to) but just stopped for a while to enjoy the view.

The view of the nearby valley is also nice but for some reason most of the snow was gone. That really puzzled me since it hasn't been above freezing since the snow fell. But it was a nice view in any case.

NEOS Overshoes

Santa Claus was good to me this year and got me a pair of NEOS Overshoes, the Adventurer model. I intend to use these this winter for backpacking.

I had been thinking about getting a pair of winter hiking boots. But I chickened out because boots are expensive considering how much snow we get here in Missouri. Also I'm not used to hiking in boots and I was concerned about getting some that felt comfortable without requiring a long break-in period.

Overshoes fit the bill because you just wear your normal hiking shoes inside.

The inside sole of the overshoe is rubberized so that your own shoes don't slip and slide inside the overshoe. This works remarkably well.

The overshoes close with a velcro strap around my calf and fasten with a strap over your foot.

Another very nice design feature is that the only opening is at the top, 15 inches from the sole, so it is waterproof. I put this to the test on my recent hike of the northern Trace Creek section of the OT. I had to ford a river that would have been REALLY cold to cross in sandals or water shoes. The overshoes worked like a charm.

When I didn't need the overshoes I collapsed them and packed them away. They collapse down quite small and weigh very little.

Recently we've been blessed with some snow here in St. Louis so I took them outside to walk around in the snow for 45 minutes or so. Not only are they well suited for this purpose in terms of keeping my feet dry but my feet were amazingly warm as well. The NEOS website was suggesting they would be comfortable down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit. It was in the low teens when I was walking around and my feet were more than warm enough.

I'm looking forward to some nice hikes in the snow in these babies.

North Trace Creek

On Wednesday, December 30th, I joined 3 other hikers from the motrails group for a day hike of the northern half of the Trace Creek section of the Ozark Trail. It was fun to finally be able to put a face to some of the names of people I'd met online. I was finally able to meet Danny McMurphy face to face. He is the expert on hiking trails in Missouri. His website is the go-to source for information on Missouri hiking trails.

We parked at an Unofficial parking spot off route DD near Council Bluff lake (about the half-way point of the Trace Creek section) and then shuttled up to the Hazel Creek campground and hiked south back to our cars.

I went up the night before and camped near where we left our cars so I would be sure to be on time in the morning (we were meeting at 9am). It snowed all night a very dry kind of snow. Really more like little balls of ice. I used my bivy because it's a perfect shelter for that kind of thing. I pitched my poncho over my head to keep snow out of my face.

The Trace Creek section, like the nearby Middle Fork section which I hiked last year, has many small creeks and rivers which beautify the trip. During the leaf-off time of the year there are nice views of the river valleys. The light dusting of snow added to the beauty of the woods.
One of the fun things about winter is the interesting ice formations you see on the creeks. I really can't imagine how some of them form. This one looks for all the world like "ice bats" hibernating or something.
The Ozarks is a great place to be in the winter.

Thermal Regulation

I've been thinking about thermal regulation while hiking this winter. During a hike your need for insulation can change quite quickly depending on outside temperature, wind speed, humidity, and exertion. Being too cold is no fun of course but being too warm can be a problem as well because perspiration can quickly chill you once you stop hiking.

Conventional wisdom says that the right thing to do is to dress in layers and remove layers as you get warmer or put them on as you get cold. However this is a lot of trouble because it involves stopping and taking off your backpack to put away or take out a layer. To avoid this nuisance most hikers don't vary their insulation enough.

I've discovered a better solution. It turns out that most heat lost you experience is through your head and your hands. I used to take my hat and gloves off when I got warm but I ended up having to try and shove them in the pockets of my pants (which were already full from my GPS and snacks). For the past few hikes I've instead worn my Sugoi Speedster 2 hoodie. I originally bought it for winter running and biking but now I'm finding it very useful for winter hiking as well. The fabric is a full stretch, wicking, midweight base layer with fleeced inner side so it's comfortable and warm. But the best features are the hood and cuff gloves. If I'm warm I can keep the hood off and my hands bare.

When I begin to feel cold I can pull the hood up and tuck my hands inside the cuff gloves. They aren't really gloves, just a fold of fabric that encases your hands. It doesn't allow for any dexterity but this is a feature I use while hiking, not while setting up camp or cooking.

I've really been loving how easy this makes it to adjust to my changing needs for insulation while hiking. In previous posts I've sung the praises of merino wool and of course this top is synthetic. The tradeoff is that the synthetic tops have a problem with odor while wool seems impervious to body odors.

On my most recent trip to hike the Trace Creek section of the OT I made a mistake when it comes to nighttime thermal regulation. I went to bed with little insulation on my legs. When I went to Sam A Baker state park a few weeks before I had worn very good lower body insulation to bed and found that it was too much and so removed it. I had brought that same insulation with me on this trip but left it in my pack. Once I realized I was a bit cold in the night it was snowing and blowing quite hard and I didn't feel like getting out of my quilt to rummage through my pack to change so I just settled for being uncomfortable.

The lesson is that you should always wear you warmest clothes to bed. It's easy to take things off in the night but it's hard to add insulation that you didn't take to bed with you. Oh well. Lesson learned.