Ozark Trail 2018 - Taum Sauk Section

Ozark Trail - Taum Sauk 

This was my second backpacking trip out on the Ozark Trail.  Back in December of 2016 made my first backpacking trip covering the Courtois section of the OT, you can read that post down below.  This time my good friend Patrick joined me to cover the Taum Sauk section of the OT.  The section is 36 miles and takes you over Ketcherside Mountain,  Taum Sauk Mountain which is the highest point in Missouri at 1778 feet.  It then runs through Johnson Shut-ins, then into the Bell Mountain
Wilderness.

We got on trail around 10:30 AM at HWY 21 trail head parking lot.  The temp was in the mid-50's with light rain and grey overcast skies that dominated the entire day.  The trail leads up out of the parking lot and directly up onto Ketcherside Mountain at roughly 1300 feet.  The trail is a healthy mix of mostly dirt to mostly rocks with some sections that seem to be entirely rocks.  By 1:00 PM we made it to the top of Taum Sauk Mountain.  This is a dome peak so the actual top doesn't have much
of a view, just a stone marker.   We ate lunch at the top and then continued onto and past Mina Sauk Falls and the Devils Tollgate Rock formation.  We arrived at a campsite around 4:30 PM with a light mist in the air and grey skies that were hastening in a premature nightfall.  Despite everything in forest being wet, we (Patrick) managed to get a fire started and we were able to stay warm, eat a hot dinner, and settle in for a much deserved sleep around 8:00 PM.  We covered roughly 11 miles on our first day and we had a lofty goal of 19 miles for our second day, a good nights rest would be key to making that happen.

Sometime in the early morning hours the clouds cleared out and the campsite was illuminated by moonlight and gave me a good feeling that at least we would have some sunshine on our second day.  We arose around 5:30 AM, made coffee, ate breakfast, broke camp and were on the trail at 7:30 AM.  We started the day with another climb up and stayed on the ridges for the first couple hours.  We stopped around 9:30 AM for a second breakfast and to shed some layers.  The views on this section of the trail are awesome.  The early morning sun burning off the fog and mist reminded me of the smoky mountains (just a little less elevation).  We continued down into the Johnson Shut-ins section of trail where we encountered more day hikers and other back packers on their way to Taum Sauk Mountain.

I am not as young as I used to be and i have been having knee issues off and one for over a year but when my left ankle started to pain me around Noon (roughly 9 miles into our 19 mile day) I started to get concerned.  I slowly made it down to our lunch spot on the Black River.  We had to wade across the river and then set out some of our stuff to dry and have lunch.  I popped a couple ibuprofen and kept my foot in the river with the hope that the cold water would help with the i

nflammation.  Patrick and I both had some lingering physically issues that we knew might cause us to have to pull up short of our goal.  One of the options was to walk the 3-4 miles into the Johnson Shut-ins campground and camp there for the night and then get picked up in the morning.

Watch your Step!

This may sound a bit cheesy but I was sitting there with my foot in the river, on a beautiful fall day, in a beautiful scenic wilderness and I was having a pity party for myself because my foot hurt.  I finally had to just get out of my own head and appreciate all that was around me and I decided that I would just see what the next mile or 2 would bring.  Fortunately my foot gave me no further problems that day.  Those 9 miles from the Black River to our eventual campsite were some of the most memorable portions of the trip.  Patrick being very sharp eye'd pointed out a rattlesnake sunning itself on the side of the trail.  Around 6 PM were were less than a half mile from our campsite and dusk was settling in when we
startled and were startled by a mother black bear and her 2 cubs down in the river.  She made a loud "HUFF" sound and spirited away along with her cubs up the hillside and away from our campsite.  That was our first encounter with bears in the Missouri wilderness and it certainly gave us a reminder to be "Bear Aware."  So we cooked and ate all our food about 150 feet from our campsite and hung our food bags in a tree away from our campsite.  I wouldn't expect a mother black bear to risk taking her cubs into our campsite to forage but we erred on the side of caution.  We awoke the following morning with no signs of the bears and all our food just as we had left it.

All that work on day 2 of our hike left us with a short and manageable 6 mile hike to the the Hwy A trail head.  One of Patrick's good friends who lives in the area agreed to pick us up and take us back to our vehicle.  The weather on Day 3 was perfect hiking weather.  With the sun shining the morning temps in the upper 30s quickly climbed to the lower 60s.  With all our campsites having readily available water for filtering it meant that we were down low in a valley and our start each day would be a climb...our last day was no different.  We took it nice and easy as we climbed up into the Bell Mountain wilderness and were greeted with more awe-inspiring views of the surrounding hills as far as the eye could see.  There was also plenty of beauty right at our feet with colorful mushrooms and many flowing plants.  It seemed that all the reptiles were out sunning themselves trying to soak in the last of suns warm rays before the winter cold finally settles in.  We spotted lizards, snakes, and a rather large box turtle.

As I sit here typing this, with my sore knees, tight calf's, and tired mind, I couldn't think of a better way to spend a weekend then out on the trail with good friends!  There are options for us out there just beyond our doorstep.  You don't have to drive to some far away destination to have an adventure and see natures beautify on full display.  I would encourage everyone to get out there and discover what Missouri has to offer.

Ironman 70.3 Galveston 2017

It had been a few years since I had done a 70.3 distance race and I was feeling the itch to do one in 2017 but I wasn't 100 percent sure which one.  But as fortune would have it one of my buddies was drinking, signed up for Galveston 70.3 and then sent me and another friend a screenshot of his registration...not long after I was signed up as well.  As a side note, this is how I got signed up for my first 70.3 as well.

So the race was held on April 2nd in Galveston, TX.  The run and bike course are both very flat with almost no elevation change.  The weather forecast for 10 days leading up to the race showed storms, strong winds and 100% chance of rain.  Even up to the day before the race we were told to prepare to be wet and try and keep your running shoes and socks in plastic bags to stay dry.  I had put a lot of time in training for the swim and a little less time on my bike and run, but I felt confident that I would finish but I had no dreams of setting a PR.   I felt that if I got onto the bike before the rain hit then that would be a bonus.  I had zero expectations of a dry run.  But as luck would have it the weather held out all day and it actually got a little hot on the run.

I was in the second wave after the pro men and pro women.  The water was 74 degrees and I was wearing a sleeveless wetsuit for the race. The swim was an ocean swim in a protected bay.  The wind was strong enough to whip up a little action on the surface but nothing too bad. When the horn went off I started slow and methodical focusing on my breathing and taking long strokes.  My inability to swim in a straight line was evident again and I found myself far off the buoy line multiple times. Despite that I found myself coming into the last buoy thinking "that didn't take too long"  finishing the swim strong with a personal best time of 41:25.

After a brief transition I was out on my bike to battle the cross-winds that were blowing at 20mph. The bike course was an out and back along the beachfront highway heading west.  I felt like I was getting a little bit of a tailwind and I had to restrain myself from blasting too hard on the first leg of the bike, I wanted to leave enough in my legs to battle what I thought was going to be a bad headwind when I turned around at mile 28.  To my surprise the headwind really wasn't there and it was just a strong crosswind and I was able to complete the 56 mile  bike course 2:52 averaging 19.46mph and my second half was only about 2 1/2 minutes slower than my first half.  I got off the bike knowing that if I had a really good run then I could match or possibly beat my previous best time from Ironman 70.3 Muncie 2011.

I had a reasonably quick transition and was out on the run for 3 loops on the run course.  If you know me, I hate running loops, I passed by the finish line 3 times before I could cross it! I would much rather run out 6.55 miles and then turn around and come back but this did make it nice for my family and friends to see my and cheer me on.  I started out quick running the first 3 miles under 7:45 min/mile pace.  After the first loop I started to slow down a little and fell into a 8:30-9:00 minute pace.  The temperature was starting to rise and I was drinking a lot of water and using cold sponges to keep my temp in check.  With about 3 miles to go I knew that I would beat my personal best, it was just a question of by how much.   My previous PR was 5:39, I dug deep, foughlst off some slight cramping, and came through in 5:28 minutes!  A full 11 minutes faster than any of my previous races.  My half marathon run split was 1 hour 48 minutes.

The finish was a little bitter sweet, one of my friends who came to race with me got kicked in the head during the swim, swallowed a lot of sea water and had to be taken off the course.  I was really bummed for him but he was okay and is already setting his sights for another race in August.  My other buddy finished the race strong and did great and signed up for the New Orleans 70.3 in October.

I would highly recommend this race to anyone who wants an early season race or someone who has kids because it is easy to turn it into a little beach vacation.  I want to thank my friends Matt and Tony who came down to race with me and who got me to sign up for this.  I want to thank Barb and David for giving me some swim pointers this winter.   Most of all I want to thank my wife Diane for the time and support and my kids for cheering me on!

Ozark Trail - Courtios 2016

Ozark Trail - Hazel Creek to Onondaga 

About 20 months ago my good friend Patrick let me borrow his copy of A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson.  This book is a first hand account of 2 men who backpack parts of the Appalachian Trail.   After reading that I fell in love with the idea of backpacking long distances and more importantly being outdoors. I quickly searched for hiking and backpacking podcasts and found The Sounds of the Trail podcast and it quickly became one of my favorites.  After a year of listening to hikers on the Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pac
ific Crest Trails tell their stories I knew that one day I will thru hike at least one of those trails.  I can't do that right now due to family and work commitments but I can still get out for shorter excursions on the weekends and I am fortunate to be living in Missouri which has a large number of great trails close by.  So for my first foray into overnight backpacking I chose to do the first 47.6 miles of the Ozark Trail.

On a cold Friday morning I parked my truck at an outfitter at Onondaga State Park and they drove me down to Hazel Creek trailhead.  The temperature at 9:30am was about 18 degrees and I was ready to be off and warm up.  I had set 3 distance goals for that day.  Goal 1 was the Berryman Campground 13 miles away, Goal 2 was a small campsite 17 miles away, and goal 3 was a campsite 19 miles away.   I was not sure how fast I was going to be able to go with 30-35lbs of supplies and equipment on my back so I would have to adjust as I went.

The day started well, it was sunny and brisk, but with no breeze it made for great hiking conditions.  I felt good and was covering 2.5 to 3 miles an hour.  I stopped for lunch around 11am and took a few minutes to rest.  Early in the afternoon I came across my first water crossing.  Thanks to some good advice from a friend and experienced hiker on the OT I had sandals to change into for the water crossing.  I waded across the water quickly dried off, filtered some drinking watering got moving again.  Thoughout the first day I kept seeing what i first thought was white plastic bags sticking out of the leaves, but upon closer inspection it was "ice ribbons" coming out of the ground and wrapping around small trees and plants.  After getting home and doing some looking these are apparently called Frost Flowers, and they are indeed very beautiful.

I had my phone with me but was unsuccessful at getting any texts or calls out to my family.  I was not expecting much out there but I had hoped to be able to give periodic updates but I had no such luck thus far.

By 2:30 I reached the spur that would take me to my first campsite option.  I had to make a decision, go setup camp early and relax or try to make it 5 more miles with only 2 hours of daylight left.  If I would have stayed at Berryman campground then I would have a 22 mile day ahead off me the next day, so I made the choice to go for the campsite a few more miles in.

I made the campsite at dusk and was able to get my tent setup and a fire in the fire pit. I had my first dehydrated freeze dried meal of beef stew, it tasted great and left me feeling good about the day.  I got into my sleeping

bag feeling relieved that I had made it thus far, but at the same time I was already ,missing my wife and kids and I was disappointed that I couldn't contact them to let them know I was okay.  I knew the next day was going to be rough but I had already cut 5 miles into it so I was confident I would reach my next campsite, only 18 miles away.

I tossed and turned most of the night, there was no breeze and the forest was silent as I went to bed.  I heard nothing but my own breathing.  I awoke around 4am to relieve myself and got back into my tent to find that all my water bottles had frozen solid.  The temperature must have gotten back down into the teens and I had trouble warming up again in those early morning hours.  I heard some owls and coyotes nearby and I laid there waiting for the sun to rise.

Day 2

I finally got up around 6AM, resurrected the fire from the hot coals and started the process of thawing out my water bottles and getting breakfast ready.  By 8AM I was fed, packed up, and had collected enough firewood and kindling so the next hiker that comes in would have an easy time getting a fire going.

My goal today was going to be 18 miles and to find someplace that had some cell coverage so I could contact my family and let them know I had survived the evening as doing well.  Around 9 in the morning I was able to get cell coverage and talk with the wife and kids so that put in a much better mood.  Around 1PM I stopped for an 15 minutes to grab some food, assess my situation and put a plan together.  I thought I was at mile 20 which was labeled Creek Bed which was supposed to have "a trickle of water" but it had none.  I continued to move forward and before I knew it I could see the Courtois (Pronounced Cor-ta-way) Creek which meant I was not at mile 20 but at mile 16!  By 2:45 I was at mile 13 and was very close to my last camping stop.

Soon after crossing the Courtois I was at the Bass Resort Trailhead and they had WIFI!  I was able to FaceTime with the wife and kids while I filtered and refilled my water from the creek.  It was great to see them and I show them where I was.  I made an executive decision to pay $10 dollars and put up my tent at the Bass Resort RV park and enjoy a picnic table, running water, and a bathroom!  I was able to wash my hands and feet with warm water and grab a bag of chips and a few beers from the general store.  I chatted with the only people staying at the RV park for a bit and then made dinner and went to bed feeling confident that tomorrow was my last day and I had only 12 miles to go.

That evening the wind had picked up considerably and I awoke to find a kitten had crawled underneath my rain-fly and was sleeping on top of my tent. I had half a mind just to leave him there, but the thought of him peeing thru the mesh onto me and my equipment  made my decision to move him an easy one.

Day 3

I slept well and woke up at 6:30, and had a quick breakfast, broke camp and started moving.  The previous evening I had  discovered multiple blisters on my feet, but I felt that they wouldn't slow me down too much and I would deal with them when I got home in the afternoon.

Up to this point I still hadn't run across a single person hiking, biking, or running on the trail.  Around 11AM I came to the Lower Narrows Trailhead, I just waded through the Courtois Creek and was in my sandals and I decided this was a good place to sit down, grab some food, wash off my feet and put my shoes back on.  There was another camper at this trailhead and some day hikers car parked. Shortly have getting on the trail a runner came up from behind and we had a nice conversation as we climbed what would be the last long climb of the day.  After we reached the top he moved along and I started the gradual descent to the Onondaga Trailhead.  Those last 4 miles were rough and my legs were screaming at me.  My pace had slowed considerably and I shuffled into the parking lot, found my truck, tossed my pack into the back and let out a huge sigh of relief.

I was exhausted, dehydrated, but I felt proud that I had taken on the challenge and completed it.  I should have trained more, but I didn't.  Because of that 3 days later, I am still sore and find it difficult to walk without a "hitch in my giddyup".  I know that I will continue to come back out and hike more sections of the Ozark Trail and one day complete them all, but hopefully I will be able to do that with my friends and family.  I enjoyed the solitude of the trip, but relationships are what this life is all about.

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this.  If you have comments or questions please feel free to comment below.

I'm Done!