Wild bird on river

8 National Wilderness Areas Where You Can Heed the Call of the Wild

Parks and trails lace Missouri like cracks in cobblestone, places where you can escape from urban life and commune with nature among windswept glades and shady forests. Missouri’s wilderness beckons exploration.


Sunset from Bell Mountain

Backpacking Bell Mountain

Bell Mountain offers a 12-mile loop with 1,683 feet of elevation change, respectable for the Midwest. Bell Mountain also offers something that you can’t get anywhere else in the country: the chance to see, in person, the result of more than one billion years of geologic time playing out.