Drury-Mincy Conservation Area (4,089 acres) is across the state
line in Missouri, next to Bull Shoals Lake, one of those ‘close to home’ places I
have been wanting to check out.
Today looks to be a good chance, since most of the snow has melted and the weather prediction says: 'sunny with highs in the low
sixties'. Drury-Mincy has two
separated sections: Drury Conservation Area (DCA) to the northeast, and the larger
Mincy Conservation Area (MCA) farther south, at the south end of Mincy is
Bee Creek, that’s where I’ll start exploring.
 |
Bee Creek at Bull Shoals Lake
|
Pulling into MCA along Bee Creek I follow the road as far as I
can, Bee Creek flows into Bull Shoals but the road turns to the north before
reaching the lake. The road crosses Bee Creek four times, with no bridges each ford is deeper than the one before. After the fourth
crossing the
road turns away from Bee Creek heading up the hill covered in sheets
of solid ice. Near the top is
posted private property along the left side of the road, then the road comes to
a turn-around at a locked gate, a hike for another day. |
stairs to nowhere
|
Back at Bee Creek between crossings 2 and 3, is a sign for ‘Bee Creek School and Cemetery’.
Less than 50 feet from the road right next to the well-worn trail is
a rather large set of concrete steps but nothing else. From here I can see more concrete ruins 50 feet up the trail, along the way
is a fork in the trail that I’ll come back to later. These concrete ruins are Bee Creek School
which evidently was a two-room schoolhouse and somewhat unique with separate
steps at a diagonal angle on the south end of the building. |
Bee Creek School
|
From here on the steps, I see a small cemetery maybe 50 feet further up the trail.
I hadn’t expected everything to be so close
together, and I’m beginning to realize this probably isn’t going to be much of
a hike. The graveyard is a small family
plot, the Orr family, with only 4 or 5 markers visible. The now faint trail continues down to a little
dry creek crossing then up a low hill to a spring with trickling water and lots
of moss, here
the trail completely
disappears. |
small trailside cemetery
|
I climb up behind the spring
and bushwhack to the north along the little dry creek looking for anything
resembling a trail. Crossing the dry creek,
I turn back and head south towards the school and arrive at the trail
just before the grave sites. Back at
that fork I saw earlier turning east and not far maybe 50 feet is the lone
grave marker for Mary Hurd who only lived 4 years. |
trickling spring
|
And once
again the trail vanishes, I meander down that same little dry creek and
soon come out of the woods on the road about 100 feet east of where I’m
parked. Well definitely not a long hike, only 0.4 miles and 33 feet of
altitude gain, but it was very interesting.
While driving Bee Creek Road I did notice a couple other old roads
heading off that
might make good hiking
possibilities that I’ll have to check out someday. |
grave marker on trail
|
Back on Highway J-40 (Gunnison Road) I drive north about a mile to
Cornell Road turn west, and in only half a mile come to three locked gates
where I park on the south side of the road.
The sign on the cable gate to the north says the road is closed to all
vehicles but foot travel is welcome. Ok,
that’s what I’ll do, the old road heads downhill right away and with lots of big
slabs of ice I have to be careful, but this is easy hiking to be sure. |
old road off Cornell Road
|
At the bottom of the hill, in about a quarter
mile is a little flowing creek which I make my way across on dry
rocks. The crossing is just upstream
from the confluence with another little creek and now the old road follows this creek upstream. I only go about 200 yards further to the next
wet crossing, it isn’t very wide but
looks a lot deeper than the last crossing and without any conveniently spaced steppingstones I decide to turn back
here. |
ice and snow on old road
|
I can see the road continues up a
steep hill on the other side of this creek, I’ll have to come back and bring my creek waders next time. Going back the way I
came is pretty much all uphill but very easy hiking on the old
road. Round trip along the little
creeks was just under 1 mile with 130 feet of elevation gain. |
creek beside Cornell Road
|
Up on Gunnison Road I continue north to check out more of MCA and soon
come to a roadside parking area and ‘Gunnison Trailhead’ with trails heading off from both
sides of the road. Up the road a little
farther bear left at a fork onto a gravel road up a steep hill. After reaching the top of the hill the road
swings left to the west, up and down a couple more hills to another
parking area 'Bear Mountain Trailhead' on the left. Another quarter mile I turn around at a locked gate.
 |
icicles along little creek
|
Back out on Gunnison Road I continue a
short way to another gravel road, this one to the right with a sign for an
‘Archery Range’. Besides archery this is also a campground, the good-sized
sites are equipped with
fire-rings and picnic tables along with nearby vault toilets. This campground is as far as I get today and
is also part of MCA, so I didn’t even make it to the Drury section of the
Conservation Area. Finding a bunch of
hiking possibilities (trails and old roads), I know we’ll be back sometime.
 |
foundation of Bee Creek School
|
Bee Creek Schoolhouse: Statistics Chart 111 You can get to the conservation area from Kirbyville to the north, but I haven't travelled that route...coming up from Arkansas to the south is pretty easy. Stonington Road is about 5 miles east on Highway 14 from the intersection with Old Highway 65 in Omaha, or about 6.3 miles west of Highway 281 South (to Bergman) on Highway 14. Take paved
Stonington Road just over 3 miles and turn left (north) on Gunnison Road (J-40). Gunnison Road also paved goes north about 3 miles to the Bee Creek access road on the right and/or
go just 1 mile farther north to Cornell Road.
Comments