Winter Hike in Dupont Forest

The winter weather and my schedule have not cooperated with my hiking this year, but everything came together yesterday and I had a good hike in Dupont State Forest, just a 10 minute drive from Ash Grove.  I was expecting there to still be some ice and snow on the trails, so I thought that I should hike a trail that I am familiar with.  I picked the Big Rock trail, which I could just about hike blindfolded–this is the trail that we take our guests on for our Full Moon Hikes, and don’t even use flashlights most of the time.  The loop that I hiked starts out at the Corn Mill Shoals parking area on the Corn Mill Shoals trail, then takes the Big Rock trail, then the back half of the Cedar Rock trail to the Little River Trail, back to the Corn Mill Shoals trail to the parking area, a total of a little over 3.5 miles.  The trail was fairly icy at this first part, but once I made the turn onto Big Rock trail, most of the snow was gone.  There were still some ribbons of ice on the exposed granite portions of the trail.  Then once I got back down to the bottom of the trail, again there was quite a bit of ice and snow.  The temperature was in the low 40s and made a perfect winter hike.  Come on up, stay at Ash Grove and enjoy your own adventure in the forest!

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