Cuivre River Trail

This weekend I took my first hiking trip of the year at Cuivre River State Park near Troy, MO. It's a great place to hike, only an hour from St. Louis with a variety of short and longer trails. This was my first real hike with my new GPS.

I took the Cuivre River Trail, starting from the Hamilton Hollow trailhead, and ending with a shortcut for a total of 8.4 miles. After 1/3 of a mile on the Hamilton Hollow, you turn right to head towards Big Sugar Creek. The next 2 miles were very muddy and flat as the trail follows the creek. After turning west and leaving the connector trail, you head uphill out of the mud and along hillsides for the next 3 miles. Then the trail turns sharply to the east as you arrive at the bluff overlooking the Cuivre River and the plains below. This part of the trail overlaps with the Frenchman's Bluff Trail, which is a shorter 3 mile hike. Total hiking time was 3 hours. Here is the map I created of the journey.

Props to:
- my wifey for getting me the GPS
- GPS Babel, a great site which lets you convert any GPS file format into any other (www.gpsvisualizer.com/gpsbabel)
- MapFinder for GoogleEarth for the topo map background

I can't upload it here, but if you want the file for the trail to upload to your GPS, let me know and I will e-mail it to you. Coordinates for the waypoints are below.

Parking Lot: ( 39° 0.591'N, 90° 56.385'W)
Trailhead: ( 39° 0.643'N, 90° 56.358'W)
Right to leave Hamilton Hollow trail: ( 39° 0.792'N, 90° 56.204'W)
Trail splits, go left: ( 39° 1.548'N, 90° 55.933'W)
Bluff: ( 39° 1.499'N, 90° 57.598'W)

To get to Cuivre River State Park from I-64, go west towards Wentzville, then get on Highway 61 North for 15 miles. Exit onto Highway 47 and turn right. Go 3 miles and turn left on Highway 147 to enter the park. To get to the trailhead, go straight past the visitors center until the road ends at the picnic area.