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5.5 miles of hiking • 750' elevation gain •

This morning we drove down to Busiek and hiked the white and orange trails, about five and three quarter miles with a couple of two hundred foot ascents. It was muddy and most of the creeks and a lot of the trails had water in them, which meant we had to be inventive in finding way across without getting wet; until we had to cross camp creek that is. It was too wide to jump and there weren’t any stepping stones. Ginger cleverly had flip-flops and a microfibre towel for just this eventuality. I managed barefoot.

On our way back we decided it would slow us down too much getting out of our shoes and then getting dried at each crossing, especially as we needed to cross the creek about four times. We just walked straight through, the advantage of wool socks is that they soon warm up even when sopping wet. We completed the trail quite quickly, something we’ve been regretting since as we’ve quite a few aches. One wonders when this will get easier.

Somehow we bodged all our preparations and forgot to take lunch, my driving licence and ID, map, hiking poles, bags to put wet things in, and worst of all we forgot the kids got out of school early! The kids got themselves home okay, we’ll be working on a packing list for day hikes which will include the item ‘Check calendar’. Camp Creek, on the white trail, Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area, South West Missouri

Crossing a creek on the white trail at Busiek

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