These top five books on hiking help guide me to hidden gems and unique places as I take on the trails throughout the St. Louis area.
Many times I return to them to find natural wonders such as waterfalls, cliffside mountain tops, springs, or shut-ins.
Hiking Missouri by Kevin M. Lohraff
A guide to 127 scenic day hikes in Missouri. This includes ones near St. Louis, Kansas City, in the Ozarks, and throughout the state.
It includes detailed descriptions of every hike, the regions, special points of interest, estimated hiking time and distance, and difficulty ratings for each trail.
Easy-to-read maps help to navigate the hike.
I have used this guide when I’ve needed more details about a hike. It has trails throughout the state so if I am further away from the St. Louis area I have turned to this book.
It does not include a lot of shorter trails or lesser-known ones, but it does include all major ones in the state.
Five-Star Trails: The Ozarks: 43 Spectacular Hikes in Arkansas and Missouri by Jim Warnock
The author explores the Ozarks in Missouri and Arkansas. From the shores of Lake Alma to Mount Magazine in Arkansas and Missouri from the Roaring River State Park to the Ozark Trail.
He has found trails that were not mentioned in many other hiking books along with the more well-known ones.
Warnock is a native of the Ozarks and has been to these places many times.
The book includes hiking advice, detailed trail descriptions, GPS coordinates, driving directions, and topographical maps.
I refer to it when exploring these areas in the Ozarks.
Fifty Nature Walks In Southern Illinois by Alan McPherson
Between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at the southern tip of Illinois is an area more similar to the Ozarks than the rest of the mostly flatland of the state.
It has scenic hills, natural rock formations, bluffs, ravines, streams, lakes, swamps, and sloughs.
This is a good book to turn to in discovering what is in Southern Illinois.
Some of the more well-known include the bluffs of Garden of the Gods, the rock formations of Giant City State Park, the cave at Cave In Rock State Park.
There are many places to explore in this area and this book helps you find them.
60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: St. Louis: Including Sullivan, Potosi, and Farmington by Steve Henry
This is an excellent primer for hiking trails near the St. Louis area.
Areas explored include along the Missouri River where Lewis and Clark ventured, in the Ozarks where you find amazing rock formations, or bushwhacking along the Meramec River.
Trails can be short hikes near St. Louis such as Castlewood State Park, Dr. Edmund A. Babler State Park, or Engelmann Woods Nature Area. Or they can be farther away and much longer such as Buford Mountain Conservation Area or Council Bluff Lake Trail.
The hikes in this book are not only in Missouri but also in Illinois.
I’ve returned to this book many times for information on the trails and the difficulty each poses.
Missouri’s Natural Wonders Guidebook By Don Kurz
This book guides you to some of Missouri’s outstanding natural wonders.
Kurz reviewed 1,600 public lands and chose these 100 special areas that show the best of Missouri’s natural world.
In the book, he provides maps, directions, descriptions, and color photos of these places.
Types of areas include prairies, waterfalls, shut-ins, caves, wildlife areas, geologic features, springs, swamps, and nature centers.
This is a reference when you want to go a specific natural feature such as a shut-in, or prairies, or swamps, and many other unique geological areas in Missouri.
MORE HIKING HIGHLIGHTS
Top Hikes 2020
I chose my top ten hikes of 2020 based on length, how much I enjoyed them, and what natural beauty I saw.
