Oh Shit, It’s the First Post!

Guess I better make it a good one then lol but I feel like the contents of Thursday’s adventure fit the bill. Creeps, allow me to present to you the majesty of Ha Ha Tonka.

Ha Ha Tonka is located near Camdenton, Missouri and connected to Lake Ozark. The state park has quite a few noteworthy spots worth checking out, primarily the “castle ruins” that everyone knows about. Those are old hat to me though, so I decided I’d check out part of the park I hadn’t seen before and I went to the natural bridge and the associated trails.

For those who don’t know, the entire region is considered karst geology, which I always thought it was just a super fancy geologist term for “big ass sinkhole/cave complex that collapsed on itself” but according to Wikipedia, it’s actually a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite, characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Oh, wait….
Personally, I think it’s just fun to say, feels good in the mouth. Karst. Try it out, it’s like SCUBA or fuck, just satisfying. Speaking of satisfying…

Yeah. The water is just that blue, baby. These pics are still being snapped with my phone as of this writing. There are no filters here, I haven’t edited the image in any way. The waters that created the cavern system and subsequent collapse are now the 12th largest spring in the state of Missouri and are about as clear and filtered as possible. Phone cameras really don’t do the clarity of the water justice.


Now, to get down to the spring, I originally started on the Colosseum Trail. 0.7 miles with a natural bridge just a few hundred feet from the trailhead. You get to walk under the bridge and I assume, had I followed the trail as designed, it ends with you walking over the top bit there seven tenths of a mile or so later. But see, that’s not what I did. I noticed a sign. This little guy right here actually.

So, of course, being the shit hot stud that I think I am…

I regretted this photo about an hour or so later lol. It really is about 200 feet worth of stairs to descend but the views of the spring below and the subsequent trails you can jump on, like the Island Trail offer different views of the landscape and terrain.

HOWEVER….if it’s hot as hell out and you don’t know the area very well and you can’t find a connecting trail that heads back up the hill, you’re gonna have to go back up those stairs you just came down. Lemme put it to you like this: I felt frisky enough when I saw that sign to pose like a jackass. I went down the stairs. I poked around down below for another…oh 2 miles or so, just climbing things and exploring the scenery below. I went back up the stairs. This was Thursday, today is Saturday, and my calves are still burning and tight. You have been warned my creepies xD

 

All in all, Ha Ha Tonka state park is an excellent location to check out, I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the things I could talk about in the photos on this post, and this is just one section of the park. As I mentioned in the beginning, the location is generally more known for the castle ruins on the grounds. If that’s something you guys would like to see, perhaps in the fall when the leaves begin to change, drop a comment or message me on the socials and I’ll make it a point to head back out there a little sooner and catch some pics you guys might like. If you’d like to know more about the location from professionals who could give it the justice it deserves, check out the park’s website here. Enjoy the photos gang and I’ll catch you all on the next one!

 

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