Hiking

What was once the MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) railroad,The Katy Trail State Park has so much to explore on foot, by bike, or on some stretches, horseback. The trail runs 240 miles over 14 counties. Get out and see the state in a whole new way.

Set Out on a Great Adventure Across Missouri

National Public Lands Day is coming right up, this Saturday, September 24, and all entry fees will be waived at national parks and other federal public lands, including national monuments, forests, recreation areas, wildlife refuges, historical sites, battlefields, recreation areas, and grasslands. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways is also on federal land.

Experienced adventurers show us around five of the state’s most extreme outdoor experiences.

Explore 250-million-year-old rock formations at The Pinnacles at Sturgeon, near Columbia

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.

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. It’s a wild world from sweeping vistas atop Bell Mountain to waters of the Eleven Point River flowing into the early morning mist. As inviting as the whip-poor-will’s call in the dark, Missouri’s wilderness beckons exploration.

You can get away without going far when you explore the trails of Columbia.