This post is part of an ongoing series summarizing each State Park in Missouri that our family has attended. We hope to visit each of 54 State Parks before the kids graduate from high school.
We visited Taum Sauk Mountain State Park as part of our “Staycation” 2020 trip, taking the opportunity to knock out a few parks that were close enough together for us to visit multiple in a single extended weekend. The “claim to fame” for Taum Sauk Mountain is that it’s the highest point in the state of Missouri. It’s found within the St. Francois Mountains and features a few trails through its 7,500 acres.
When we went, we really were just wanting to visit the “highest point,” but it took us a bit to find it. There wasn’t a really obvious sign or anything that said “highest point in Missouri this way!,” but we eventually found it.
After that, we walked along one of the trails . The Mina Sauk Falls trail is the one we tried, as it’s a loop that passes by a scenic overlook and some waterfalls. I can’t say the falls were that impressive, frankly, but they were a solid distraction for the kids to play in for a bit before we went to visit other sites. The Mina Sauk Falls trail follows along the Ozark Trail for a bit, which actually connects to Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, but we just did the short-ish loop. The trail itself was pretty rocky, so we had to be careful with how the kids were hiking, as some of the grades were a bit steep.
We’re glad we stopped by, but we’re also glad we didn’t plan an entire trip around Taum Sauk Mountain. After we did the loop trail, there wasn’t really much else to do there! No park office, the parking lot was gravel, and there were very few informational signs around. It was a nice little trail, but there are other parks nearby where there are more activities available!