All my posts about Hercules Glades Wilderness presented in chronological order. Click here to see the pictures of Hercules Glades Wilderness without all the text.
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Morning coffee and hot chocolate by Long Creek
Morning coffee and hot chocolate by Long Creek -
Black Eyed Susan, Ginger and Lanie
Black Eyed Susan, Ginger and Lanie -
Just back from three day’s backpacking
Bluff on Beaver Creek – Hercules Glades Wilderness I’ll be writing more in a few days. For now, we camped at the top of this 260ft. bluff last night. It took a bit of bush-whacking to get there but it was worth it.
View from the bluff
View from the bluff above Beaver Creek
View from the bluff
View from the bluff above Beaver Creek
View from the bluff above Beaver Creek
Camped near the top of the bluff -
Weekend Backpacking at Hercules Glades
View from the bluff above Beaver Creek The schools in Springfield were closed on Friday, so we took advantage of the long weekend to go on our first backpacking trip since last September.
A couple of things influenced our choice of where to go. First Lanie was staying with the Grandparents. Second we are both very out of condition. We wanted to be able to take things easy, but also see some new sights. There’s a set of bluffs on the western side of Hercules Glades that we’d found on the maps and explored a little on Google Earth. This was a great opportunity to go and have a look.
We left home on time to meet up with Ginger’s parents at Ava at 11:30am. Jim treated us to lunch at the Subway at Ava, and then off we went. Shortly after 2pm. we were on the trail.
You can read my write up of our trip on Ozarks Walkabout. The highlight of the trip was spending Saturday afternoon resting and enjoying the spring sunshine on top of a 260 ft. bluff overlooking Beaver Creek. In total over the three days we only hiked 10 miles and climbed 1500 feet.
We got back to the trailhead around 1:30pm on Sunday and then went to Ginger’s parents for a family afternoon and dinner.
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Stock Pond and Cattails – Hercules Glades
Stock pond and cattails A picture from last weekend’s backpacking trip. We were checking out a stock pond to see if it might provide drinking water. The pond was not only quite large, but also surrounded by cattails (I know them as bull rushes) that had started to break apart and seed.
Seeding Cattails by a stock pond
Stock pond and cattails -
Campfire & Platy
Ginger’s Platy and the campfire Ginger spotted this picture which worked very well. We probably should’ve put more water in the Platy.
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Gary Fixing his huaraches on the trail
Gary fixing the laces on his huaraches. Copyright © 2013 Ginger Allman, all rights reserved. Every so often the knot under the sole between my toes breaks off. When it does I have to stop and tie a new one. I heat seal the new knot to make sure it doesn’t come undone.
Gary Crossing Long Creek. Copyright © 2013 Ginger Allman, all rights reserved. And another picture of me, this time crossing Long Creek near the end of our hike.
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Old Man’s beard (Spanish Moss)
Old man’s beard on the trees at the edge of the bluff – Hercules Glades Not my beard I should add. In among the trees the lighting was quite good – though the wind coming up the bluff was blowing the old man’s beard it all over the place. We think it’s growing here because of the moist micro-climate created by the bluff and creek.
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Start of our Hercules Glades, Pees Hollow Backpacking Trip
Ginger signs us in at the Tower Trailhead, Hercules Glades Wilderness. We had a little navigational problem getting started. The beginning of the western half of the Pees Hollow trail isn’t marked, and the trail isn’t much used. With all the fallen leaves we went past the start of the trail and had to backtrack.
The views were well worth the effort.
The Pees Hollow Trail 
Looking East across Pees Hollow. Look carefully and you’ll see the moon too.
Looking East across Pees Hollow
Looking East across Pees Hollow -
Gary on the Pees Hollow Trail
Gary on the Pees Hollow Trail. Copyright © 2016 Ginger Allman, all rights reserved. This truck cab is a bit of a landmark on the trail – it’s just to the south of a spring – so there is water nearby. There is also a fire ring close by.
Copyright © 2016 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
Fire Ring on the Pees Hollow Trail. Copyright © 2016 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
