The Art of the Drought

I like to walk on cooler mornings at Glassberg Conservation Area on the beaten and sometimes challengingly muddy path around the pretty three-acre (man-made) lake I sometimes fished in, that I privately called my own Walden Pond, and last week was stunned to see the lake dried out to practically nothing, surrounded by a Missouri moonscape of cracked mud and dead water lily plants.

In this picture you can see from the orange gauge where the water level used to be.

The lake is a tenth or less than what it was! The former sky mirror that had a whole bunch of us (or at least one person every day) hiking in half a mile carrying gear to fish there! The dead trees stuck up from it like wooden knitting needles. Fish remain in the increasingly scarce, warm water--jumping, as if to say, "Save us!" The Department took down the sign warning anglers about the daily catch limits.

Barely recognizing it and not quite believing it I crunched my boots across the desert landscape close to what water is left.

New Loop Trail at Glassberg Conservation Area

As I geared up in the Glassberg Conservation Area parking lot for my traditional Thanksgiving hike, a hiker returning to his car cleaned mud from his hiking poles. I said, "Is the trail muddy?" He said, "There's a new trail," more than once because I didn't understand. But I found out.

Glassberg's former Trail "A," a quarter-mile which ended disappointingly in an open field, and Trail "C," terminating at the Meramec River overlook, are now joined in a loop measuring about 2.25 miles, marked simply "Trail." It rates moderate ups and downs, and at its highest elevations, at the forest's edge, yesterday's snow had left the trail slick and muddy. Having no idea of the trail's length or where it ended up (I hadn't asked whether it was a loop) I pressed onward, hoping to be the first to report this new trail to you and map it. The pamphlets and map at the site don't as yet show this loop. The trail itself was well marked. I enjoyed the hike but because pie was waiting at home, my favorite trail marker today was "Parking Lot" with an arrow pointing the way.

Trail marker and downed trees

You'll find the Department of Conservation has done extensive cutting, mostly of cedars, in a bid to restore native Missouri oak and hickory forest to this former private property of 429 acres.

Happy Thanksgiving!

New at Glassberg: Meramec River Viewing

New at the end of Trail C at Glassberg Conservation area in Jefferson County, instead of balancing on the rocks at the top of the very sheer cliffs to get your glimpse of the Meramec River and its spectacular sandbar, there's a viewing platform jutting just enough so leafed-out trees don't obscure the view. The trail, about a mile long and mostly paved, is worth a walk, and the new deck just another bonus for living in or near the Ozark foothills. I've found another reference giving the story of the name "Meramec"; this time the source is the local paper.  The paragraph reads, "Many people mistakenly say it means 'river of death.' In the early 1700s when the French first got here, they interpreted the Indian pronunciation as 'Miaramiquoa.' A difficult word to spell, many early maps show its spelling as Maramig. As people from the northeast arrived here, they were familiar with the Algonquin word 'Merrimark.' Over the years, the spelling evolved to Meramec. The Indian intepretation of the name is 'River of ugly fish.' Anyone who has caught one of those big catfish on the Meramec would agree with this."