Don Robinson State Park: First Look

Click on the above photo to see the full horizontal view

Don Robinson, childless bachelor, made a fortune with spot remover and ended up owning 818 acres in northern Jefferson County, MO that before his death in 2012 he gave to the State of Missouri for a new state park that opened at last on January 6, 2017. One of its two hiking loops is 2.4 miles, partly paved, and the other more than 4 miles; the latter isn't open yet. His unusual, hand-built hilltop house (part stone cottage that was already there, part particle board, old boards, old glass, or anything he could recycle) is preserved for a future Don Robinson museum.

Raw-looking orange and red sandstone cuts are the first thing you'll see as you enter from the Byrnesville Road. A steep short asphalt loop leads to Robinson's house, with an Ozark foothills view as far as you can see. A huge concrete terrace was poured to its south and furnished with a shelter, picnic tables, and rocking chairs. It'll be a spectacular view in every season. Some old stone stairs have been preserved, along with the old bench in the photo, the only ornate thing there. Robinson's grave (he was born in 1927) is not far from the house and on a new bench nearby you can sit and say a long thanks that his land did not become a subdivision.

Originally it was said there'd be a campground but there isn't. The property abuts some of the LaBarque Creek-area conservation sites and natural areas. Special features include lots of chinkapin oaks and birds, and hardly any cedars (unlike the formerly cedar-choked Glassberg Conservation Area). Eight hundred eighteen more acres for the people of Missouri and guests. Most of the land is accessible only on foot. I was there late in the day and caught a few rays of sunshine, scarce these last two weeks in January. The land will be fun to explore.

The View

"Let's hike at Castlewood State Park at 2 p.m. Sunday," said the hiking group. When I got to the park, a former resort for the swells of old St. Louis, I saw that everyone on the planet had the same idea. Castlewood has three parking lots. They were all filled. I drove around for 10 minutes, more slowly than the pedestrians walking their dogs, enjoying the 58-degree winter sunshine, sporting shades and shorts (always, someone prematurely wears shorts because it's very important to identify oneself on all possible occasions as a party animal). I gave up and was backing out -- couldn't hike if I couldn't park -- when I found and seized a spot. Children ran around. Cars nosed along the road in a long slow line. Bikers and cyclists powered through. A woman fished in the little creek. The park was crowded and we -- 20 hikers -- were only making it worse.

The trail we chose had been churned into mud by other hikers and big dogs and off-road bicycles. Almost nothing is more slippery than mud except for the watery ice we encountered on the next section of our trail. Traction was impossible. Some hikers turned back. Leaning on my hiking poles I bypassed this through a netting of brush. When regrouped, we took an alternate trail known to be rocky rather than muddy. Then approaching the cliff top we met with, like, a runway of mud again, and dozens upon dozens of people and dogs enjoying, in the rare sunshine, the view of the Meramec River. The way back down was a wooden staircase, thank God, but the path along the riverbank was muddy. At least it was level. We got our hike in, and the bluff-top view that the swells of old St. Louis thought would be forever theirs alone.

Troubled Bridge On Old Route 66

Once part of the famous Route 66, this 1009-foot-long bridge was built in 1931 and closed in 2009, and to discourage illicit foot and bike traffic and keep the rusty thing from collapsing under its own weight, the paving was removed and this is what you now see from the landed portion of Missouri's Route 66 State Park, a tract of about 400 acres. In the distance with the red roofing is a famous roadhouse built in 1935, known as "Old Bridgehead Inn" or "Steiny's," depending on the era and whom you ask. It's now Route 66 State Park's visitor center and museum (closed November through February; it's just as well, since there's no dancing or beer).

I walked this bridge, spanning the Meramec River, back when it was still paved and linked the two segments of the park the river now separates. This photo was taken on State Park land that was formerly Times Beach, a working-class/poor-people townlet with four bars and four churches, 801 families, a mayor, and 23 miles of dirt roads. To keep the dust down, during the '60s and '70s they hired a guy to repeatedly spray used crankcase oil on the roads, but he'd mixed it with toxic waste: dioxin, used to manufacture the poison Agent Orange. Times Beach was so saturated with dioxin with that the EPA ordered the whole town evacuated in 1983, buying out the residents. The EPA then dug up 240,000 tons of contaminated soil, built an incinerator and incinerated it on the spot (finishing in 1998), and buried what was left of people's houses, and now it's land called Route 66 State Park where there's no camping and nothing to see but this end of the bridge, and nobody lingers or picnics. Nobody who knows the story, anyway. A bike ride or run or hike around its edge (3.25 miles) is enough.

But once this was a happenin' town with grocery and gas station, the bridge an infamous speed trap allowing Times Beach to support itself. I have a friend born in Times Beach in 1971. I mean really born there, not in a hospital. She's blind in one eye and has chronic kidney problems. The bridge's skeleton stays while the state hopes someone will fund its restoration.

LaBarque Conservation Area Doubles in Size

It was news to me that the 639-acre LaBarque Creek Natural Area, with its 3-mile trail, had three parcels added that make a total of 1,274 contiguous acres forming the LaBarque Creek Conservation Area. The Missouri Conservation Dept. says that a "natural area" is an area untouched by development, one that shows visitors native Missouri landscape; in this case the oak-and-hickory, creased and pitted Eastern Ozarks. By contrast, a "conservation area" might once have been farmed or otherwise used, but is now protected from further "development."

So when the hiking group went off-trail to explore the new acreage on a cloudy, cold Christmas Day, I went along. From the trail, down the rugged slopes we bushwhacked to the streambeds, some with icy water or pools (pictured) but mostly intermittent and full of stones, and bright-green moss. We found unexpected glades (already undergoing red-cedar removal), one impressive cliff, several small or narrow waterfalls, and much quiet woodland.

Don't bring your kids. It was heavy going -- one mile per hour. The new parcels link the Natural Area to the soon-to-be but not-yet-open Don Robinson State Park, for a total of more than 2,100 acres of new public land. I picked the right place to live, I did, because none of this was conservation land before I moved here. It's all about protecting our precious 6.1-mile creek, the mighty LaBarque, habitat of many wonderful Ozark-type creatures whom you have met on my pages, some of whom I've personally hosted in my house.

Bush Beater

On a glorious day took a walk in Engelmann Woods Natural Area, one of the few tracts of old-growth forest in Missouri:  regal oak, hickory and ash trees. Its lollipop loop trail of two miles is marked, but insufficiently; fallen leaves buried part of the trail, especially the low-lying areas, and huge fallen old-growth trees or their limbs blocked the way a few times, and circumventing one of them I saw no further path. But I did see a bluff I wanted to get to for the view, so leaving my hat on a branch as a marker, up I scrambled.

Got my view. Orienting myself using my hat, I then cautiously picked my way down the leaf-covered, rocky slope and retrieved it. Now to regain the trail and finish the hike--but not knowing where it was I consulted the app called Map My Walk. Using GPS it red-lines your journey on a Google map of the area. (On the map you can see where I went off the trail, around the 1-mile point.) It told me a straight line would get me there. Forward I plunged, calf-deep in thrashing fallen leaves that hid rocks and holes and silt; bare branches of understory whipped my face. Then I saw the trail marker. I finished the trail and went on home, but being lost was the fun part.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

As the year ages like fine wine, I woke planning a hike at mid-morning today, then was deluged with messages and calls demanding instant action everywhere at once, and could have worked 16 hours and maybe get through it all, but then I thought about my ancestors who'd say "What foolishness," and after working all morning fixed a nice lunch and furthermore, sat down and ate it, and don't care who knows it. I settled for an afternoon walk at Glassberg Conservation Area, circling its three-acre lake I sometimes fish in. (I didn't fish even once this summer; too busy.) An odd little gem of an island in that lake, you see here.

November hikes must be short and planned. After 2 p.m. the shadows lengthen by the minute; after 3 p.m., about the time this photo was snapped, the hills begin swallowing the sun, and rocks and streambeds exhale icy breath; after 4 p.m., darkness unwraps its chilly lengths and nothing stops it. The bright side: Only five more weeks until the daylight begins lengthening.

Divine: Remember Me This Way

Should you, a long time from now, have occasion to remember me, this is the picture I want y'all to have in mind:, Divinebunbun among Missouri coneflowers on a June day. This was my happiness! Taken today on a return trip to Valley View Glades by my friend Maurice.

Ozark Headwaters Hike

At the Young Conservation Area in Jefferson County I finally discovered the LaBarque Hills Trail. To reach that loop trail requires about 1.5 miles on the easy, flat creekside Taconic Trail, for a total hike of 6 miles. On this hike you will ford LaBarque Creek, about five times, on little stepping stones. The LaBarque Hills hike (rated moderate) is worth the effort, because in this area the LaBarque, from its Ozark foothills headwaters, flows imaginatively, wide and narrow, over rock shelves and beds of gravel; pristine and scenic all the way, and accessible only to those who'll walk there. I'd love it if you walked with me, but in case you can't, I've brought back photos.
Hiking during leafless times lets you see the normally hidden and the faraway. Also, a mild winter day is the best possible day to hike. You won't get heatstroke and there aren't any mosquitoes.

About the creek name: A "barque" is a three-masted ocean-sailing ship. This creek -- and the river it flows into, the Meramec -- probably never hosted that kind of ship. In French, the language of the 18th-century white settlers here, "la barque" means the small boat that a sailing ship carries astern or alongside for short trips. Near the juncture of the LaBarque and the Meramec, that kind of barque might have actually been used, but the creek for most of its 6.4-mile length is rocky with many small waterfalls, and not navigable. But it's just as pretty as these pictures all the way.