Ozark National Scenic Riverways

We've spent the past day exploring the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. We arrived yesterday, after our drive down from Taum Sauk Mountain. We visited the visitor contact station in Van Buren for our passport stamps and some information, then we set off to explore. Our first stop was the appropriately named Big Spring. We explored the site where water seems to boil up out of the ground.

There's even a small cave behind the spring that I went inside.

We walked an old path that went behind the spring and then along a limestone cliff

to the site of a now closed CCC-built lodge and some other CCC-built structures.

It was great to see lots of wildflowers lining the path!

Finally, a real taste of spring!

Our next stop was Rocky Falls.

Rocky Falls is what they call in these parts a "shut in". A “shut in” is formed where harder rock, in this case rhyolite, has “shut in” the stream. We enjoyed the view from the bottom of the falls

and then climbed a ridge to a view from the top.

After our visit to Rocky Falls we headed over to the Two Rivers campground where we spent the night. The restrooms are still closed for the season, but that means we got to camp for free! There are nice views of the Current River from near our campsite also.

This morning when I woke up I had to use the restroom. The pit toilets were a long walk (probably over 1/4 mile) from the campground. However, along the way there were lots of wildflowers to look at and photograph.

We ate breakfast, packed up camp and then set out to do some more exploring. We headed over to Blue Spring to check out the deepest spring in the United States. It was a short walk to the spring

and once again we had lots of wildflowers to look at as we made our way there.

We admired the view of the spring from a boardwalk just above the waters

and then climbed a set of stairs to look over the spring from high above.

We then retraced our steps back to the car for the drive to our next destination, Alley Mill and spring.

I would say that Alley Mill is the most iconic site in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. In fact, it was recently featured on the America the Beautiful quarter for Missouri.

We parked the car in the large parking lot near the mill and made the short walk to the beautiful red structure.

Behind the mill we found Alley Spring

and a trail that led along the limestone cliff that surrounded the spring.

We found more wildflowers blooming along the trail

and lots of interesting limestone arches

and small karst features.

We walked the trail back to the parking lot and decided that we wanted to do more hiking. We had noticed a sign for the "Overlook Trail" and so we got a snack at the car (a bag of Cherrios that Sierra carried for the entire walk)

and set off to explore. It was an interesting trail with lots of switchbacks. Unfortunately the overlook was closed, so it was difficult to get a good view of the mill and spring from the high vantage point. We did see more wildflowers though,

and an interesting moth.

The last stop of our visit to Ozark National Scenic Riverways was an exploration of Devil's Well, a sinkhole that leads to a large, partially water-filled cave chamber. We walked down an impressive set of wooden stairs

and dodged a small waterfall

before finding ourselves at a unimpressive view of the underground chamber. Oh well, still a fun little excursion. At this point it was time to start making our way up north and back into winter. We made it as far as Bloomington/Normal, Illinois where we are spending the night in a hotel.