Busy Weekends #2: Columbia, MO, The Pinnacles

We visited Columbia, Missouri, this past weekend. Jake wanted a break from our regular scenery, and I never say no to a short road trip that involves a hotel and someone to make breakfast for me. We had Shakespeare's Pizza with my sister Colleen on Friday night and then headed back to the hotel. In the morning, someone else made breakfast for me and then we went to the Pinnacles Youth Park, which is a piece of private land 13 miles north of I-70 on US 63 (directions: turn right on Pinnacles Road, make an immediate right hand turn, follow road to the gates). It's a tiny bit of land that is open to the public. I think the goal is to make it available to youth groups--scouts, 4H--but it is open for day trips to the general public.

We spent the first 20 minutes or so confused. We walked around, but all trails seemed to lead back to the car, like some naturalistic Alice Through the Looking Glass kind of arrangement. The girls and Jake did see a mole, which they pet and oohed over (now Daisy wants a mole for her birthday, which will not happen unless it were a birthday gift for our cat Jake). But we couldn't figure out how to get across the creek, which was a bit stagnant and definitely deep. We were headed for the pinnacles themselves, these big towers of limestone right across the way, but unreachable.

So we headed down towards this overhang instead:

Saw this bird, who was unhappy with our being there, since she had babies to feed in the crevices of the roof of the overhang. I think bank swallow? Maybe? Thoughts? There were many of them, circling and zzzzt-zzzeeet noises. It looks more like a northern rough-winged swallow but I'm still debating in my head.

Finally we realized we needed to cross the creek somewhere, and near the overhang was a shallow area that I was able to get myself and two girls across. Jake had Billy in the hiking backpack. This was confusing not only to us but to the three other people who were in the park with us at the time (seriously, no one else was there).

We crossed the creek and there on the other side was the trail, going quickly upward towards the pinnacles. It wasn't really that much of a climb, it seemed, until you looked down and realized it was quite high up. This picture below, that's the creek there in the middle, the one I just crossed.

Fiona was very very nervous about being up so high. I was too--not for myself, but for Daisy, who has no fear and no sense. The trail changes from just increasing in altitude to becoming narrow, with a cliff on one side and a drop off through steep woods on the other. Daisy's hand was held tight.

We got to the top of the pinnacles, though, no tragedy, and this is the view:

Daisy wanted to go further. I wouldn't have gone further even if I didn't have kids with me. Before we got up here, I was thinking this would be a great place for the scout troop to stay a night on the way somewhere west, but I have pretty much changed my mind. And I took girls to Shawnee and Garden of the Gods...but this seemed even more treacherous along the trail at least.

But it's beautiful! If you go, park your car in the turn around. Go down into the little valley with picnic benches and cut down trees, view the pinnacles from below right in front of you. Then turn right and take the trail to the overhang. From the overhang, backtrack to the smaller picnic area (it had a blue trash can when we were there), and take the little trails down to the water's edge and cross the wide creek where the rocks form paths. On the opposite bank, look for a washout bank that leads to a trail (we made a slight left turn). Go up.