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Irish Wilderness
Irish Wilderness – There’s no Google Street View on HWY J, so I took a picture. of the Camp 5 Pond access road at Irish Wilderness, Missouri. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I’m running out of wildernesses to visit in Missouri. Irish Wilderness is named after a group of Irish immigrants who lived in the area. The settlement was destroyed and subsequently abandoned during the American Civil War.
I’ve been working most weekends for a while, so I claimed a couple of days ‘Comp. Time’ for my four-day trip.
I’d forgotten about Irish Wilderness until earlier this year a friend asked if I’d hiked it. That started me researching. It’s one of the larger wildernesses, and a one-hundred-and-fifty-ish mile drive from Springfield. According to the write-ups I’ve read, it’s a difficult trail to follow. So the extra time might come in handy. Water is also an issue, there’s not supposed to be a lot on two of the longer sections of the trail. My plan was fairly simple, take the White’s Creek Trail counterclockwise starting with the North Loop.
Given the trail’s reputation of being hard to follow, I deliberately picked late spring for this hike in the hope that a lot of people would have already hiked it this year, making it easier to follow. The trail map I had was based on the GPS coordinates provided by Ouachitas Maps, which despite being over ten years old, proved to be excellent, and very accurate.
Just to give myself a challenge, I was considering starting with an eight-mile hike to Bliss Spring. As I arrived after midday, I needed to get moving.
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Parking lot at Camp Five Pond, Irish Wilderness
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Camp Five Pond Notice Board and hitching post
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Irish Wilderness, Mark Twain National Forest
Irish Wilderness, Mark Twain National Forest – on the spur trail to the White’s Creek Trail. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. My plan for this trip is fairly simple, take the White’s Creek Trail counterclockwise starting with the North Loop.
- Day One. Hike six to eight miles on the North Loop, stopping either at some stock ponds or if the water there looks iffy, carrying on to Bliss Spring. Eight miles with a midday start means I’ll need to move quickly, and I’m terribly out of condition. Should be fun!
- Day Two. Hike four or so miles to the White’s Creek Eleven Point put-in, and camp somewhere near there.
- Day Three. There’s rain all day in the forecast, so another short four miles or so and stop somewhere near Fiddler Spring.
- Day Four. Hike out, another four or five miles, and the weather should be nice again.
Of course, plans change, and this one was no different, though I was blissfully ignorant of the fact at this point.
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Spur Trail from Camp Five Pond to Whites Creek Trail
The above picture looks back along the spur trail from the junction with the Whites Creek Trail. I’m heading right (West) along the North Loop of the trail. I’d better get used to this view of Missouri oak woodland because, as I found out, it isn’t going to change much for the next six or seven miles.
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Whites Creek Trail (North Loop)
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Lunch Break on White’s Creek Trail.
Lunch Break on Whites Creek Trail. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Well, it was more of a snack than lunch. I didn’t want to spend time heating some food, so I made do with a tuna sachet. I’d already stopped once, at a crossing of the currently inaptly named Dry Prong, to refill my water bottle, and daylight was burning.
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Gary, ready to get moving again – On the White’s Creek Trail, Irish Wilderness
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On the trail to Bliss Spring
Bliss Spring 3.9 Miles. And it is four o’clock, at this rate I’ll be arriving around six-thirty p.m. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I’m not sure when I made up my mind to hike the eight miles to Bliss Spring, but I kept moving on. For some reason, I didn’t take any pictures of White’s Creek when I crossed it. I should have, it was wide and fairly deep. There was a big pool too. It would have made a good stopping point, but I had a bee in my bonnet about getting to the Spring.
The climb up away from White’s Creek was tough. Only 160 feet or so, but the trail was narrow and the drop-off was quite impressive. You wouldn’t want to slip and take a tumble. There was only one more small creek that I crossed, though it was more of a drainage ditch for a big stock pond, which I didn’t bother to check out.
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Bliss Spring
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The two springs at Bliss Spring, Irish Wilderness
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Bliss Spring (Pano)
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Bliss Spring (video)
Bliss Spring has to be seen and heard, so I recorded a short video. Unfortunately, it’s a bit shaky in places. I was using my tiny tripod tied to a hiking pole to keep the camera steady. I wasn’t always successful at keeping things smooth.
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Bliss Spring
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Bliss Spring (Second spring)
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Camped at Bliss Spring
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Campsite by the Eleven Point River
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Old homestead chimney
I presume this ruin dates back to the American Civil War era (1861-1865). The house would have had a nice view of the Eleven Point River. I was hoping there was a way back to the main White’s Creek Trail from here. If there was I didn’t find it. Instead, I backtracked all the way back to Bliss Spring.
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This is not the trail you are looking for…
That is not the trail you are looking for … You would think (and I and many, many others have), that the trail goes straight on here. Not so. Look carefully and there’s the trail, two feet in front of the sign on the left going up the hill. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. You would think (and I and apparently, many, many others have), that the trail goes straight on here. Not so. Look carefully and there’s the trail, two feet in front of the sign on the left going up the hill.
The trail leads to a nice campsite with a view of the Eleven Point River and some old ruins, so I’m not going to complain about my navigational blunder. This was, however, the first indication that the trails on the southern loop of the White’s Creek Trail were going to be a little bit more challenging to follow.
The picture below shows the trail in the opposite direction with the spur trail to Bliss Spring on the left. The sign purports to mark the Irish Wilderness and Eleven Point Wild and Scenic River boundary – I think this is more of a virtual boundary, as according to the map, the real boundary is further east.
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Eleven Point (Wild and Scenic) River
Eleven Point Wild and Scenic River. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This is pretty much the only overlook in the entire 20-mile Whites Creek Trail. The trail here is very narrow and rough with a 100+ft. drop-off on one side.
What’s with the (Wild and Scenic) stuff? Nothing. Except that’s how it’s listed on the map. I think it’s a tad daft. Strictly speaking, it’s the Eleven Point River, and the area is called the Eleven Point Wild and Scenic River.
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Caves on Whites Creek
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Whites Creek at the Whites Creek Float Camp
Whites Creek at Whites Creek Float Camp. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Whites Creek Float Camp looks to be abandoned, but I’m guessing it is just showing a lack of TLC brought on by a year of neglect because of COVID-19.
Float Camp equals an unexpected bonus. Picnic tables and grills!
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Path from the put-in to the float camp
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I have a picnic table and a grill!
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Time for a nice cup of hot chocolate
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Change of Plan (And an unloved wilderness registration point)
My original plan for today was to hike part of the southern loop of the Whites Creek Trail and stop for the night near one of the big pools that form on Whites Creek. Then I’d have an easy three or four-mile hike out on Monday – easy except that part of the trail has most of the elevation gain!
Yesterday afternoon, through the wonders of my Garmin InReach satellite communicator, I got a message from Ginger letting me know that the kids were going to descend on us for dinner Monday afternoon. Knowing that the car would be needed in Springfield to get the necessary vittles, and my help would be appreciated, I had two choices. I could either hike out a day early or make a very early start Monday so I would be home early enough to help. Irish Wilderness is 138 miles, and two-and-a-half hours from home. Five miles hiking would take three hours, so to arrive at midday, I’d need to be on the trail by six-thirty in the morning and to do that, I’d need to be up between five and five-thirty.
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I decided I’d hike the seven-and-a-half miles back to the trailhead today. In the rain. Because, as luck would have it today is forecast to be this trip’s rainy day, which was another reason why I originally only planned on going two or three miles today.
So, here I am at twenty past ten (that’s an early start for me!) on a Sunday morning, already on the trail, at the wilderness sign-in point on the spur trail leading to the Whites Creek Float Camp, making my way back to the Whites Creek Trail. It doesn’t look like the registration point has been tended to in quite a while.
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Crossing Whites Creek
You have to cross Whites Creek to get back to the main Whites Creek Trail. It’s not very obvious in this picture (or in reality), but the trail climbs up the bank just to the right of the tree on the left side of the frame.
The creek was around knee-deep at this point. Refreshing was a word that sprang to mind. Well, one of the words that sprang to mind while making the crossing.
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‘eek Float Camp
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Back on the Whites Creek Trail
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Heading up towards Whites Creek Cave
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Looking back down the trail
Looking back down the trail – the trail turns up the hill here (you can just about make it out in this picture). Most people (including me) appear to miss this. The official trail marker is not particularly helpful either. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Looking back down the trail – the trail turns up the hill here (you can just about make it out in this picture). It is quite a scramble. Most people (including me) appear to miss this. I wondered if it was the trail, but the path going straight on (behind the camera) was very well-trod. I only went twenty feet or so before I decided to go back and check whether the trail was coming down the hill or if it was just a water run-off channel. The official trail marker is not particularly helpful either. It suggests you should go straight down the drop-off.
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Whites Creek Cave
Despite the sign, all caves (and mines) are closed because of White Nose Syndrome. This is the only sign I’ve seen with an apostrophe in White’s. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. The short steep climb was rewarded by arriving at Whites Creek Cave (the only place on either map or sign that I have seen an apostrophe in White’s). The cave, like all of Missouri’s caves and mines, is closed to protect the bats from the spread of White Nose Syndrome.
I did peer in through the railings to see if I could see anything though! I couldn’t, but by the wonders of technology (my camera and my headlamp) I was able to take a picture of the inside.
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Looking into Whites Creek Cave
No I didn’t go in. I took this picture through the grill using my headlamp at full brightness to light up the cave. Had I been thinking, I would have set the camera on my mini tripod and gone for a longer exposure and some light painting.
There’s nothing to give the picture any feeling of scale. Let’s just say, “Pretty big.”
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Looking back along Whites Creek Trail
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Hello li’l buddy
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Fiddler Spring
Fiddler Spring – I took a quick detour to checkout the spring and top up my water. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. After the most impressive Bliss Spring, Fiddler spring was a bit of a let-down. But it was a source of water, and I needed to top mine up to see me through to the end of my hike.
Pack it out – don’t leave your trash behind. Also, make sure your fire is dead out. Despite the rain, the fire was still smoldering. I doused it before I moved on. Copyright © 2021 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. There’s a nearby campsite, that comes ‘equipped’ with crate chairs, a line to hang your hunting kills on, and a large fire ring. Someone had obviously stayed overnight. They’d left trash in the fire, and hadn’t bothered to put the fire out. despite the rain, it was still smoldering. I doused it before I went on my way.
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Final crossing of Whites Creek
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Whites Creek Trail completed
Breakfast in America
Living happily ever after still means you have to clean house and do the dishes