OUTDOORS

Rockhounding was a bust, but hike at Wakonda State Park makes up for it

Sara Karnes
Springfield News-Leader

Outdoors Reporter Sara Karnes is visiting trails and conservation areas to photograph the sights and write about her adventures. Look for her articles online and in print.

Lewis County, Mo. — This story was supposed to be about mining geodes. I was going to regale y'all with tales of slinging dirt in order to find the buried minerals, but it wasn't meant to be.

The forecast across most of the state has been giving drought-like conditions, but the one corner geodes are prominent, the skies opened and doused the areas we were scheduled to visit.

Hoary vervain is spotted growing along a trail at Wakonda State Park July 7, 2022.

Rather than allow the rain to completely put a damper on our five-hour road trip, we looked up places to hike instead and found Wakonda State Park

Although the name may bring up images from Marvel Cinematic Universe's Black Panther's home, Wakanda, the spelling is just a bit different and we didn't fly to sub-Saharan Africa to find it.

Wakonda State Park is about a four-hour drive from Springfield.

The six lakes at Wakonda State Park attract migratory waterfowl of all kinds, and largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie and catfish swim the waters, according to Missouri State Parks.

Just off Highway 61 in La Grange, a little more than hours north of Springfield, Wakonda State Park is an area close to the Mississippi River. It was drizzling pretty well, but Trent Holloway and I still explored. We investigated the the sandy swimming beach before hitting the trails.

Three trail signs show which route is which at Wakonda State Park.

By the time we were halfway down the Sand Prairie Trail, the rain had let up to a inconsistent drizzle, and the gravel path was teeming with wildlife. A couple white-tailed deer, nearly a dozen cottontail rabbits and a multitude of birds were gathering to round up a meal.

More:What to do if you encounter a black bear? For starters, never play dead, biologist says

While checking out a berry bush, we noticed some scat on the ground. Later, we theorized it belonged to a bear, which lead to me writing about being bear aware while hiking.

Berries hang from a bush on a Wakonda State Park trail.

Hopefully the next time we journey to the northeast corner of the state, I'll be able to dig for geodes and report back to all you lovely readers, but for now, hiking this patch of land was quite a reprieve before we returned to the sweltering heat of the Ozarks.

Sara Karnes is an Outdoors Reporter with the Springfield News-Leader. Follow along with her adventures on Twitter and Instagram @Sara_Karnes. Got a story to tell? Email her at skarnes@springfi.gannett.com.