My adventures started with a day hike at Rock Pile Mountain Wilderness, the smallest of Missouri’s wilderness areas and probably the least-visited.  The trail begins on Little Grass Mountain and proceeds south to the top of Rock Pile Mountain.  The trail is unmarked but was generally easy to follow since I had a map to give me a clue which way to go.  There are two large areas with numerous trees down on the trail, forcing one to detour and find the trail again on the other side.

This is the ring of rock for which the mountain and wilderness area are named.  It was apparently built long before European settlers entered the area and was reported to be about 4 feet tall early in the 20th century.

The Rock Pile

There isn’t much more to say about this place, though I certainly haven’t seen all of it.  I’ve now visited all 7 of the wilderness areas in the Mark Twain National Forest.