January 1, 2025
It was a beautiful day to be out hiking in the woods. January 1st is “First Day Hike” and I decided to visit Neosho, Missouri. Although the High Ground Bike Preserve is a designated bike trail, hiking is allowed. I was the only one on the trail today until I was leaving and then others were getting on the trail.
I started at the main trailhead in the park area. I hiked counterclockwise and therefore did the Homestead Loop first. The trails were mostly dirt and smaller rocks. Once in a while, there would be a tree root to watch out for. The trail isn’t really marked but it is well worn and easily followed. I kept coming across, “DO NOT ENTER DOWNHILL AREA” signs and couldn’t figure out where they started so I could travel down. About half way around, I came to a second parking area and that is the trailhead for the Rough Rider Ridge Trail.
I did see many gray squirrels and a couple of deer while on the trail. If you start and go right, not to far down the trail you will see the ruins of a couple of buildings. Keep following the Homestead Trail and eventually you will come upon the ruins and be able to get a closeup view of them. If this was a house at one time, I would have loved to live there. You are up on the top of the ridge and can see a great distance. It would have been a beautiful view each day.
Beginning at the ruins, I started to see candy canes placed along the trail. That was a nice addition to the scenery. At times you will travel through the woods, then you may come to a clearing, or the area may become more bush than tree. It appears that there may have been a fire in the area as many of the trees had burn marks. You can also tell that at some point, there had been wind damage because there were several trees that had fallen and the trail had been cleared. I also found a lawn chair at the bottom of a ravine; in one area there were several tires just randomly placed, which was odd; and then a can just off by itself. Seeing these items in what seemed like random places makes you wonder how they got there because it would not have been an easy task to get them there. There were also old concrete chunks in odd places and a “junk/trash” pile.
After I completed the intended loop and because I was the only one on the trail, I decided to go up one of the DO NOT ENTER areas to see if I could find out there the downhill begins. I went up the La-Z-Boy Downhill and came to the area where it and the Gone Rogue and Wildcat Chase trails begin. I still couldn’t figure out how I missed seeing this area so I followed a trail that led up to them and ended back up on the Homestead Trail. (At the intersection where you can go right and stay on the Homestead Trail or go left on an unmarked trail, follow the unmarked trail and it will take you to the beginning of the downhill trails.)
This wasn’t the most exciting trail but I enjoyed every minute because it is a moderately hard trail and you will get a workout with all the ups and downs.
The Morse Park is rather large and it does seem to have lots of paved trails to walk as I saw several people walking their dogs. There are play areas, a fishing area, a skateboarding area, and several ball parks. I have a feeling that in the summer this park is very busy. I did see restrooms but I do not know if they were open.
Overall, a very nice trail and I will be returning when the ground is too wet to walk the dirt trails and see where the paved trails lead. This was a great way to start the new year.
I have additional photos posted on Journies Outside Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571357578836