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.
Like I said in the previous post, we were knocking off a bunch of state parks this year since we couldn’t really travel far for a traditional family vacation. There were multiple parks within driving distance of Poplar Bluff, so we centered our focus around there. One of the options was Morris State Park, which, again, a). doesn’t include camping, and b). appears to not be a heavily attended park.
To be fair, we didn’t check attendance measures until later (apparently got something like 8,500 visitors in 2024, whereas Van Meter State Park got 47,500…), but it became evident as we started on the 2.7 mile trail (I say “the” because it was the only one). There was a sign when we first got going that mentioned poison ivy being a thing, but we took that as, “well, it’s Missouri, so of course it’s a thing??” We quickly found, though, that there was poison ivy growing on the trail itself, which wasn’t ideal.
What was growing on the trail wasn’t too bad, but small little plants growing up will eventually create problems for visitors. There were larger plants off to the sides that we took care to avoid, but there were three or four large branches/trees down, crossing the trail, that forced us to move off-trail a few times, complicating our journey and increasing the chances we’d hit the poison ivy.
Still, the trail itself was pretty good, or at least, if a). we were there in October, and b). if the parks service would come by to remove the downed branches, it would be a pleasant hike with some limited elevation changes and decent views. The park is settled near a peach grove, so it was pretty obvious we were hiking right next to a semi-open field with some trees in it. We also heard tractors off in distance, so it was an oasis of woodland clearly located within farmland.
Honestly, we weren’t all that impressed. The state park website plays up the fact that, geologically, Crowley’s Ridge (upon which some of the hiking takes place) is a raised portion of the ground that used to be lining the ancient Gulf of Mexico, then millennia of ice age meltwater continued to shape the area into what it is now. Impressive, I suppose, but ultimately, it’s kinda just a hill with some trees on it (sorry, geologists….).
So yeah, if you’re in the area and want to give it a look, I’m not going to say skip it….but none of us were particularly impressed, especially given the lack of maintenance on the trail!