The drive to Cathedral Canyon was quite entertaining due to scenery like this.
(Notice the Confederate flag and the silhouette of a hunter with his rifle)
We went down a few gravel roads before turning onto the “primitive” road that would take us to the trailhead. I wasn’t even sure this WAS a road; it looked more like a trail! But this “road” was no match for my badass Subaru. Kristin and I realized we were in a Subaru commercial.
The directions said to follow an old road, and after a few hundred yards, when the road forks, take the trail to the right. Well, we did not see a fork. And we knew the hike we were doing had no official trail at all, so we figured we’d find our way. We knew we were supposed to climb a “low divide” on the way to the canyon, so we weren’t concerned with going uphill at first. But then, it started to seem like we’d been going uphill for a long time. I thought to myself, “’Low’ is a relative term. If someone from Backpacker Magazine used the word low, they could have been describing this, even though my lungs are burning and I feel like we’ve been climbing for years.” We both knew this couldn’t be right, but forged ahead. Going off-trail wasn’t a problem since we wanted to work on navigation skills. When we finally reached the top, Kristin had the bright idea to pull out the map, and I got out my compass. Being the geniuses that we were, we realized we were on top of the mountain next to the trail, Mount Trackler. The great part about hiking with Kristin is that neither of us were upset. So we’d just accidentally climbed a mountain. No big deal.
At the bottom of the mountain, we realize our mistake. We’d parked in front of two trailheads; there was no “few hundred yards” to hike before the fork. And the trail to the left was blocked by a tree trunk and didn’t really look like a trail at all until you were on it for a few minutes. And then, it turned into a trail of terror, especially for Kristin, who is not crazy about spiders. It’s spider season here, and they had spun huge, intricate webs across the trail. It was at this point that Kristin won the resourcefulness award for the day; she procured a “spider stick,” which she used to gently move the webs over to the side. In addition, there were mosquitos and other bugs constantly buzzing around our ears, flying into our eyes and mouths. Not a very pleasant hike. But then, we arrived in Cathedral Canyon. And it was worth it.
(We were excited to see a cairn that Kristin added to)
It wasn’t like the canyons you’d see in Arizona, but neither of us were naïve enough to expect that. It was beautiful in its own right, and completely deserted. It felt like a secret spot that we had discovered, and like no one was around for miles and miles.
Kristin pulled out her camera and shot this gem of a video:
We admired the wildlife in the canyon (Kristin almost stepped on a cottonmouth snake, and we saw this little guy)
...and stopped for a snack. By this time, it was late afternoon and we needed to head back.
It was time to head to Hawn State Park, where we would camp for the night. Kristin put the directions in her GPS, and we were off. When we started turning on gravel roads, neither of us thought much of it. Her phone still knew exactly where we were. I wondered if maybe we should be taking more well-traveled roads, but we surmised that her phone was taking us in a back entrance to the park. I felt uncomfortable driving through an open gate, but thought maybe that was the entrance to the park. The directions took us on a really narrow road in between two lakes that looked like this:
When we saw a sign that said “Camp Butterfly,” we knew we were in the wrong spot. But we persisted, because the GPS showed us driving through the summer camp and into the park. What the GPS did not show, however, was the locked gate at the other end of the camp.
We went back the way we came, ready to find an alternate route. The only problem, however, was that the gate we’d driven through on the way in was now locked:
I feel like we had one of those Beavis and Butthead moments, “Uhhh…” while the other one snickers. Then we just about died laughing. We were locked in Camp Butterfly. Could this be any more ridiculous? We got down to business and started searching for the camp phone numbers, but couldn’t reach anyone. Not knowing what else to do, we called the county sheriff’s office. “Stay put, ma’am,” said the lady at dispatch. “I’m sending two deputies to you.”
We decided to make a video while we waited.
The first deputy on scene was very serious and professional. We asked what the plan was, and he told us they would attempt to locate the keyholder, and if they weren’t successful, the fire department would come out to break the lock. Desperate to avoid that fiasco, we asked how we’d locate the keyholder. “Want to go for a ride?” the deputy asked. We hopped the fence, and this is how went ended up in a cop car, driving around to the nearest neighbor’s houses, asking if they had contact information for the keyholder. The second house had what we needed, and we headed back to the camp to wait for the keyholder’s arrival. In the meantime, a second deputy showed up, threatening to leave us there when he found out I am a Cubs fan. While chatting with the deputies, we asked for hiking advice and were told to visit Pickle Springs. Finally, the deputy was able to get on his radio and say, “Keyholder on scene.” This guy just could not fathom how we’d come to be stuck there. We gave up explaining and just thanked him repeatedly and apologized for messing up his Saturday night.
The deputies asked us if we’d like an escort to the state park. “Um, I think we’d rather just head back to Farmington tonight,” we replied. “We saw a Hampton Inn there that looked pretty nice.” We still received an escort to the main highway. It was slightly unnerving to drive with cops cars behind me and ahead of me.
The evening concluded with dinner at Applebee’s and a hotel room at the Hampton Inn. Not exactly camping. But Kristin pulled out her laptop to do some research on Pickle Springs and discovered it has a SLOT-LIKE CANYON!! It was fate- we’d met that cop so he could guide us to what was probably the only slot canyon in the state of Missouri! There was no question what our first stop would be the next morning.
(Notice the Confederate flag and the silhouette of a hunter with his rifle)
We went down a few gravel roads before turning onto the “primitive” road that would take us to the trailhead. I wasn’t even sure this WAS a road; it looked more like a trail! But this “road” was no match for my badass Subaru. Kristin and I realized we were in a Subaru commercial.
The directions said to follow an old road, and after a few hundred yards, when the road forks, take the trail to the right. Well, we did not see a fork. And we knew the hike we were doing had no official trail at all, so we figured we’d find our way. We knew we were supposed to climb a “low divide” on the way to the canyon, so we weren’t concerned with going uphill at first. But then, it started to seem like we’d been going uphill for a long time. I thought to myself, “’Low’ is a relative term. If someone from Backpacker Magazine used the word low, they could have been describing this, even though my lungs are burning and I feel like we’ve been climbing for years.” We both knew this couldn’t be right, but forged ahead. Going off-trail wasn’t a problem since we wanted to work on navigation skills. When we finally reached the top, Kristin had the bright idea to pull out the map, and I got out my compass. Being the geniuses that we were, we realized we were on top of the mountain next to the trail, Mount Trackler. The great part about hiking with Kristin is that neither of us were upset. So we’d just accidentally climbed a mountain. No big deal.
At the bottom of the mountain, we realize our mistake. We’d parked in front of two trailheads; there was no “few hundred yards” to hike before the fork. And the trail to the left was blocked by a tree trunk and didn’t really look like a trail at all until you were on it for a few minutes. And then, it turned into a trail of terror, especially for Kristin, who is not crazy about spiders. It’s spider season here, and they had spun huge, intricate webs across the trail. It was at this point that Kristin won the resourcefulness award for the day; she procured a “spider stick,” which she used to gently move the webs over to the side. In addition, there were mosquitos and other bugs constantly buzzing around our ears, flying into our eyes and mouths. Not a very pleasant hike. But then, we arrived in Cathedral Canyon. And it was worth it.
(We were excited to see a cairn that Kristin added to)It wasn’t like the canyons you’d see in Arizona, but neither of us were naïve enough to expect that. It was beautiful in its own right, and completely deserted. It felt like a secret spot that we had discovered, and like no one was around for miles and miles.
Kristin pulled out her camera and shot this gem of a video:
We admired the wildlife in the canyon (Kristin almost stepped on a cottonmouth snake, and we saw this little guy)
...and stopped for a snack. By this time, it was late afternoon and we needed to head back.
It was time to head to Hawn State Park, where we would camp for the night. Kristin put the directions in her GPS, and we were off. When we started turning on gravel roads, neither of us thought much of it. Her phone still knew exactly where we were. I wondered if maybe we should be taking more well-traveled roads, but we surmised that her phone was taking us in a back entrance to the park. I felt uncomfortable driving through an open gate, but thought maybe that was the entrance to the park. The directions took us on a really narrow road in between two lakes that looked like this:
When we saw a sign that said “Camp Butterfly,” we knew we were in the wrong spot. But we persisted, because the GPS showed us driving through the summer camp and into the park. What the GPS did not show, however, was the locked gate at the other end of the camp.
We went back the way we came, ready to find an alternate route. The only problem, however, was that the gate we’d driven through on the way in was now locked:
I feel like we had one of those Beavis and Butthead moments, “Uhhh…” while the other one snickers. Then we just about died laughing. We were locked in Camp Butterfly. Could this be any more ridiculous? We got down to business and started searching for the camp phone numbers, but couldn’t reach anyone. Not knowing what else to do, we called the county sheriff’s office. “Stay put, ma’am,” said the lady at dispatch. “I’m sending two deputies to you.”We decided to make a video while we waited.
The first deputy on scene was very serious and professional. We asked what the plan was, and he told us they would attempt to locate the keyholder, and if they weren’t successful, the fire department would come out to break the lock. Desperate to avoid that fiasco, we asked how we’d locate the keyholder. “Want to go for a ride?” the deputy asked. We hopped the fence, and this is how went ended up in a cop car, driving around to the nearest neighbor’s houses, asking if they had contact information for the keyholder. The second house had what we needed, and we headed back to the camp to wait for the keyholder’s arrival. In the meantime, a second deputy showed up, threatening to leave us there when he found out I am a Cubs fan. While chatting with the deputies, we asked for hiking advice and were told to visit Pickle Springs. Finally, the deputy was able to get on his radio and say, “Keyholder on scene.” This guy just could not fathom how we’d come to be stuck there. We gave up explaining and just thanked him repeatedly and apologized for messing up his Saturday night.
The deputies asked us if we’d like an escort to the state park. “Um, I think we’d rather just head back to Farmington tonight,” we replied. “We saw a Hampton Inn there that looked pretty nice.” We still received an escort to the main highway. It was slightly unnerving to drive with cops cars behind me and ahead of me.
The evening concluded with dinner at Applebee’s and a hotel room at the Hampton Inn. Not exactly camping. But Kristin pulled out her laptop to do some research on Pickle Springs and discovered it has a SLOT-LIKE CANYON!! It was fate- we’d met that cop so he could guide us to what was probably the only slot canyon in the state of Missouri! There was no question what our first stop would be the next morning.
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