Pavement Ends
James Baughn was the webmaster of seMissourian.com and its sister newspapers for 20 years. On the side, he maintained even more sites, including Bridgehunter.com, LandmarkHunter.com, TheCapeRock.com, and Humorix. Baughn passed away in 2020 while doing one of the things he loved most: hiking in Southeast Missouri. Here is an archive of his writing about hiking and nature in our area.
Castor River Shut-ins more spectacular in off-season
Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008, at 3:55 PM
It's hard to believe, but we actually had a couple days of nice weather this winter. March 2 was one of those days, a rare sunny day sandwiched between ice storms.
Last summer I visited Castor River Shut-ins and found a parking lot overflowing with partygoers. The scene was much different this time. I saw more water, less beer.
This is one place that actually benefits from above-average rainfall. The runoff from recent rain, snow, sleet, ice, or whatever precipitation we had, cascaded down the shut-ins in spectacular fashion.
I'm sure the water was even higher during last week's Mother of All Rainstorms, but it probably wasn't safe to visit then.
During the summer, it's easy to miss the signs marking the Nature Trail that travels beyond the shut-ins. This is a surprisingly scenic trail, climbing to the top of the ridge and overlooking the Castor River canyon below.
It's also easy to overlook the fact that the shut-ins is only a small part of the 1,632 acre Amidon Conservation Area. If you squint your eyes, the Castor River below the shut-ins almost looks like it could have been transplanted from Colorado.
When entering the conservation area, the road to the shut-ins (County Road 253) bears left. However, if you continue straight on CR 208, you'll come to a parking area and then a ford across Castor River. There's plenty of areas to explore on both sides of the river from here. Now if only we could get a stretch of decent weather for a change.
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