Explorations of two state parks on the banks of the Lake of the Ozarks.
Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri is a man-made lake created by damming the Osage River. It’s fairly obvious by looking at the lake on a map. The fake lake is on the northern side of the Ozark Plateau, part of “the Ozarks” (hence the name). Lake of the Ozarks is not the easiest to visit. Most of its 1,150 miles of shoreline are privately owned. So, you really need a boat to really explore the entire lake. There isn’t a true tourist center either. No good shopping district, which I found odd. There is, however, two state parks along its shores, Ha Ha Tonka State Park and Lake of the Ozarks State Park, and a bunch of show caves are in the area as well.
It had been a horribly hot summer. I don’t know why I thought moving to Missouri was a good idea. (There is a reason I do much of my traveling in the cooler months.) I hadn’t really able to go hiking much of summer but somehow the rain came and cooled the state down a bit. That rain had awesome timing. Our first stop was Ha Ha Tonka, and it was gorgeous outside. It went from heat index of 104 degrees to something in the low 80s. Perfect.
Ha Ha Tonka State Park is super enjoyable. Many of the trails intersect so you can make your own loop. The park is on the small side but it’s gorgeous. Oh, and there are ruins.
A Kansas City businessman by the name of Robert McClure Snyder, Sr. decided he wanted a European style manor house on the cliffs overlooking a river (it was not yet a lake). He named the property Ha Ha Tonka after the natural springs below his future house. It supposedly means either “big laugh” or “smiling waters.” The construction of the “castle” was started in 1905 and finished by Synder’s sons. After the stock market crash, the mansion was turned into a hotel which burnt down in 1942. Today, only parts of the house’s shell remain.
Jana Irving Ruins of the stable. Somehow embers from the main house fire ended up setting this on fire as well.
Jana Irving The Lake of the Ozarks really just looks like a super wide river honestly.
Jana Irving Ha Ha Tonka Spring from above. Just look at that wonderful color!
Jana Irving The castle ruins.
Jana Irving The Dell Rim Trail goes horizontally across a steep hill.
Jana Irving The Water Tower.
Jana Irving The Natural Bridge.
Jana Irving The other side of the natural bridge. Pretty neat.
Jana Irving A hillside meadow on the Spring Trail.
Jana Irving Lakeside.
Jana Irving I love it when the water is like this. So gorgeous.
Jana Irving Getting closer to the spring. I’ve seen some sources call it Ha Ha Tonka Spring and some call it Whispering Dell Spring. A bit confusing.
Jana Irving Look at how clear that water is!
Jana Irving A perfect place for ducks to hang out apparently.
Jana Irving One of the happy ducks.
Jana Irving There’s the spring!
Jana Irving The color looks awesome from this angle.
From the spring, there was a super long staircase to get back to the Dell Rim Trail which led us back towards our car.
Early the next morning, it was time for Lake of the Ozarks State Park. This park isn’t as cool as Ha Ha Tonka, but it did have some strong points. Lake views were not one of them.
Jana Irving The Lake View Bend Trail is horribly named, because it really doesn’t have lake views, but we saw some deer in the rain. They stayed pretty chill until my mom’s cell phone pinged. Then they ran away. Sigh.
Jana Irving This is basically the only view of the lake on this trail.
Jana Irving You have to go to a swimming and boat launch area to see the water.
Jana Irving One must stop in the middle of the road to take a photo of a baby deer. There wasn’t anybody behind me at least.
Jana Irving Now for a trail that I really enjoyed, the Bluestem Knoll Trail. The vegetation found along this trail is similar to what the first Europeans to this area would have seen.
Jana Irving There is a bunch of little meadows along the trail.
Jana Irving I love meadows.
Jana Irving Next we tried the Shady Ridge Trail which had a couple of lake views. There were, however, super loud boaters around this area.
Jana Irving This tree’s roots create a little waterfall. So cute.
The last stop was Ozark Caverns within the park. Everyone carries lanterns during the tour. Somehow my 2.5-year-old iPhone takes good cave photos. My normal camera sucks. It’s weird.
Jana Irving That bottom part looks like foam insulation. The water continuously flows down from the ceiling creating this weird mineral build up.
Jana Irving There’s a couple of little pools of water. There was even a frog hanging out in the area.
Jana Irving The flowstone looks like melted ice cream.
Jana Irving A bunch of little formations.
Jana Irving Some caves are super weird looking.
Jana Irving Bears left a lot of claw marks on the clay here.
Jana Irving Melted ice cream is everywhere.
Jana Irving There is a lot going on here.
Jana Irving A bunch of little pools.
Lake of the Ozarks was not what I was expecting. I thought there would really be a larger tourist shopping area. It was super hard to find a magnet. I really enjoyed Ha Ha Tonka State Park and Ozark Caverns was easily the best part of Lake of the Ozarks State Park. I really got the feeling that the Lake of the Ozarks is best explored by boat unfortunately. However, the area was plenty entertaining for a couple of days.
Check out my next update where I explore more of the Ozarks!
or
Check out all these other posts on the Ozarks!
