Buford Mountain Loop July 20, 2017

After a most difficult week for me and the same type of difficulties for my friend Joe. We decided it was time to go to the woods to sweat off some of your worries, and that we did. With a heat advisory in effect in the Midwest for the last week. We walked 11 miles in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity.
Joe had not been to Buford Mountain and I had only been once, so we met at 8 am at the trail head and off we went.

 no one around on a Thursday morning.

It is all uphill to start.

The high point of Buford Mountain. 1740 feet (5th highest in Missouri, but all of the top 10 are within 100 feet of each other)

Lots of really nice summer flowers along the trail 

 There is no actual view from Buford Mountain, but further along the trail is Bald Knob (a rocky clearing) with nice views to the farmland below

Joe on Bald Knob

 Panorama from Bald Knob 

 summer flowers

Several rock walls along the trail marking old settlements 

 more pretty flowers

There is lots of old car parts along a section of the trail, how they got the cars back here in the 30's or 40's is beyond me

 some colorful fungus along the trail

 We both had issues with the heat coming up the last long hill that seemed to go on forever. It was time for a rest right on the trail.

Even our lizard friend was not moving very fast

We had plans to go right over and climb to the top of Hughes Mountain, but it was 5 hours to do the loop in this heat and we both decided that there would be no more walking for today

Thanks Joe for the company and great conversation... 

Video from the top of Bald Knob.