Mark Twain National Forest Offroading (Missouri Ozarks)

[Wayfaring Ranger]

Anyone have any experience offroading around Mark Twain National Forest and willing to share some favorite routes you've found? I'll be hitting some of this area soon as it's the closest to me from the STL metro.

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[pablo94sc]

Let me know what you find out. That's pretty close to me, so it would be a good spot to test out my truck and skills once I get it.

 

[coryyyy]

I haven't been personally, but Arkansas Offroad has posted a few videos hitting trails in the Mark Twain National Forest.

Express Rally has a short one also.

 

[Wayfaring Ranger]

Finally got a chance to hit some roads less traveled in MTNF last weekend. We were headed down to Eminence for some floating and took some detours. Started easy, using OnX Offroad's "Current River Conservation Area" marked trail (near Exchange, MO) which is only listed as a 2 or a 3 difficulty. I'm still hesitant to fully trust the truck, plus I didn't have a winch buddy so I wanted to keep the trails easy for now.

It starts easy with some well groomed & wide forest (rock) roads. We came across a public, unmanned gun range and after that the trail became much smaller and washed out. There were about 5-6 "water crossings" but they were bone dry. One decent little hill that had some large washouts, but 2H got me to the top with some minor slippage. Definitely heard some concerning scrapes on the sides of the truck but after inspection it seems like no permanent stripes, yet. Unfortunately never got out to take any truck pictures on the trail, although I did take a photo of the public range.

Also took a short detour to the blue spring that feeds right into the Current River

I did plan on hitting another OnX Offroad loop right NE of Eminence but we ended up running out of time + rain. I believe that route takes you along bluffs & the river, up to the wild horse fields and then back to the main road. Hopefully that will be the next trip out there.

Overall was a great trip and a good first test for the truck. This entire area of missouri has so many great things to discover/rivers to visit and it's a real hidden gem to anyone that isn't from the area.

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