Hammock Overnight Hawn State Park 11.5.16

One of our usual group arranged a night out at Hawn State Park and invited anyone that might like to join us. This turned out to be a good weekend to meet new people with about a dozen people showing up for the night out in the woods.

It turned out to be a beautiful weekend. Hawn is probably the most beautiful park in Missouri. It shows a bit of every geologic feature available in Missouri Parks. 

 A bit of Prairie view as you enter the park

I had actually never seen this many people in the park before. Both parking lots were completely full and people were even parking on the grass. 

I was going to meet a few of the participants at the trail head, but as usual I was early so I decided to do a bit of a warm up by walking up and back the Pickle Creek Trail. It is just 1.5 miles round trip but follows the creek 

The water flows down and along granite boulders, creating great shapes and patterns

 It was time to meet everyone to walk into the campsite that we hoped would be available given how many people were on the trail. Most were day hiking, but there were a couple of groups of boy scouts that looked like they were going to be out for a month, given the size of their packs!

Whispering Pines is the main trail system in the park consisting of two loops in a figure 8 configuration. One loop 6 miles, the other 4 

 The fall colors were just starting to turn up in the park

Starting off

 We were just walking in about 2 miles and fortunately no one was in our camp spot. The idea was to set up camp and then anyone could hike more today or even get up and hike the loops in the morning.

Hammock spot chosen

Hammock set up 

water secured from the creek 

Lots of interesting items in the ground cover

Corey relaxing in his hammock

 Gathering around the fire ring

Getting the fire started 

Lovely way to spend the evening

Wide shot of camp before dark 

 

Morning fire to take the chill off 

 The morning was cold. temps got down to 32 degrees (0 C) but the sun came up to reveal a beautiful day.

 Thanks to everyone that attended and Joe for organizing. Special thanks for everyone that spent time to gather and cut firewood.