It’s
another beautiful day, and it would be a waste not to get outside for the
day. Getting a late start, I must have partied
too hardy for Super Bowl last night.
Since I’m getting out the door later than usual I decide to head over to
Bee Creek in Mincy, it only takes about 20 minutes to get there so I’m still at
the trailhead by 10:00. ‘Mincy’ is
part of the Drury Mincy Conservation Area just over the border in Missouri.
 |
Bee Creek
|
Mincy,
or if you like acronyms ‘MCA’ is south of Drury ‘DCA’ the two sections are separated
by some private property parcels, MCA is also much larger than DCA. Haven’t made it up to Drury yet, I just can’t
seem to get past Mincy, this is my sixth visit.
Today I’m back in the Bee Creek area which is the prettiest part of the
park, that I’ve seen so far (see: 111 Bee Creek and Cornell).
 |
| Bee Creek Rd. |
 |
parked at food-plot 33
|
Pulling
onto Bee Creek Road off Gunnison Road, right away is a good sized parking area
and just past that a heavy gate that I’ve never seen closed. But whenever Bull
Shoals Lake is up near ‘full capacity’ or ‘flood pool’ this gate will be
locked. This happens every year usually
in the spring and some years it will stay closed for weeks or even months. Of course this is not an issue today seeing
as we’re in the clutches of a drought.
 |
sycamores along the creek
|
Bee
Creek Road fords Bee Creek four times on its way east downstream. After the
first of these concrete slab creek crossings, I pull over and park at one of the
many wildlife food-plots (this one is #33).
I walk down an access road heading back west past some nice white barked
sycamores along the creek. This road
doesn’t go far, ending at another food-plot which I continue west through to
the woods on the other side.
 |
| mossy area in the cedars |
 |
back through food-plot
|
Finding
a trail I keep going but the trail soon fizzles out at a moss covered area in a
cedar thicket. I circle around south
then back through the field to the road back to the truck, then continue down Bee
Creek Rd. After the next two ‘fords’ of
Bee Creek and passing 3-4 more access roads, I pull in and park at the side of
another access road. Hopefully this one
goes somewhere, it starts west then soon turns southwest and heads uphill.
 |
| third ford of Bee Creek |
 |
beginning of the long hill
|
This
will be my steepest and longest climb of the day, and it’s in the sun the whole
way to the top, about a 260 foot climb.
Before reaching the top is a pull-out parking spot, then 400 feet further
a road junction, the road right heads back downhill in a northwest
direction. I continue straight in just
120 feet to another junction, this road continues another 100 feet into
food-plot #40, but I turn left east and the road soon levels out. |
road junction
|
Not
very far is a faint road right, into the woods and straight ahead a cable gate
laying on the ground. I step over the
cable and continue east. It’s pretty obvious people still drive past the gate but
now the road feels more like a trail. On
the ridge in a quarter mile is a faint road south downhill, I keep on the
obvious road going east. About 750 feet
further is an old log across the road marking the end of the drivable
road, now a very faint old road, it’s about 150 feet to a dry pond. |
| on the top is big food-plot 40 |
 |
east over the cable gate the road gets faint
|
Staying
on the ridge the direction changes slightly to southeast, I bushwhack my way
downhill toward the point. The grade is
pretty gentle to start but gets steeper as I go, the undergrowth isn’t bad at
all, mostly dry grass with some wild blueberry.
The tree cover has been sort of thin all along this ridge, allowing lots
of dry grass but I soon come to more cedars and rocks so the grass thins out
in an area of many low rock ledges. |
thin woods on the ridge
|
I’m
getting close to the bottom where a small feeder stream on my right flows into
Bee Creek on my left. The last 40 feet
or so of the descent to the point, the cedars give way to rocks and I find
myself on a nice rock overlook 30 feet above the creeks confluence. With views up and down Bee Creek as well as
up the little feeder stream to the west, if Bull Shoals Lake wasn’t so low this
view would be a vast expanse of blue water. |
barren landscapes of low lake levels
|
To
the west down in the rocky creek bed I see ATV tracks and decide to go have a
look, it’s an easy climb down through the rocks with very little vegetation
since this ground is normally all underwater.
The tracks I’m following soon become an obvious ATV trail so I keep
going west upstream. Not a lot of
water but this is a flowing stream with pretty little pools every now
and then, I find a ‘pig’ jawbone on the trail and wedge it in a dead tree. |
heading west up the creek
|
About
150 feet past the jawbone blue ribbon tied in trees identifies the course of
this trail that crosses the creek a couple times but stays mostly just above
the north bank. ‘Blue Ribbon Trail’
follows close to the lovely creek with small scale water features and some low
bluffs for the next 0.6 miles. Along the
way is a roll of rusty barbed-wire and lots of blue ribbon. Near the half mile mark a boundary fence line
appears along the south side of the trail, complete with signs. |
along Blue Ribbon Trail
|
Then
the trail leaves the creek continuing west uphill, not too steep this is easy
going. On sort of a wide low ridge I
leave Blue Ribbon Trail and head north uphill through the open grassy woods to
big wildlife food-plot #40, passing a deer stand strapped to a tree before
entering the field. Continuing north
around the east perimeter, passing another mostly dry pond before leaving the field
into more cedars at a nice flat campsite. |
barbed wire and the park boundary
|
From
there I’m back on the road at the cable gate lying on the ground, I turn left
back to the ‘main’ road (then right) that will take me down the long hill back
to the truck over half a mile away. When
I arrived at Bee Creek this morning I didn’t really have a firm plan, I
just picked a road and started walking.
It turned out to be a great plan for a warm winter day, my total
milage walked today was 4.2 with 523 feet of elevation gain. |
beautiful Bee Creek
|
Bee Creek: Statistics Chart 218 To get here from the south
in Arkansas is pretty easy: find Stonington Road about 5 miles east on SR 14
from the intersection with Old Hwy. 65 in Omaha, or 6.3 miles west on SR 14
from the SR 281 intersection. Once on paved
Stonington Rd. go north about 3 miles and turn left (north) on Gunnison Road (J-40)
cross the state line into Missouri.
Continue north on Gunnison Rd. about 3 miles and turn right on Bee Creek
Road just after crossing Fox Creek bridge.
 |
base map before fair use alterations is property of USGS--licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License
|
Comments