View From Hughes Mountain

Some of the oldest exposed rock in the world, 1.5 billion years old (that's old!), can be seen on Hughes Mountain, an ancient volcano in a Natural Area south of Potosi, MO, in Washington County, just off of Highway M. Most people don't know that this area of eastern Missouri, the St. Francois Mountains that you see, so rich with lead and iron, is not your mother's Missouri. It's igneous or volcanic rock: lava. This area was once a bunch of boiling volcanic islands that blew their tops. On the trail, keep going, keep going, up the stream bed; it takes about half an hour from start to to the big open glade at the top. You'll see rocks and columns six-sided or four-sided, like cubes, crystals, bricks, Lego pieces.

This area is locally called the Devil's Honeycomb (geologists say, "polygonal joining") and geologically it's like the Devil's Tower in Wyoming. The Hughes family came from Tennessee in 1810 and bought 120 acres of the mountain, but couldn't make a living out of the soil here so John Hughes and wife Suzanna ran a grist mill. The Department of Conservation has added 306 more acres to the area. Not too far away is a better-known Eastern Missouri volcanic-rock attraction: the Elephant Rocks. But Hughes Mountain and perfect weather suited me just fine on a day that I got my work done early and said, "Let's go somewhere I've never been." Click on the photo for the full panoramic view.