Whose woods these are

The Brush Creek Trail begins in woods and skirts the prairie

It seemed a good way to spend the afternoon on New Year's Day, away from the cardiac arrest of college bowl games. And so I drove 25 miles west to the Shaw Nature Reserve, with its 2,400+ acres of woods, prairie, wetlands, glades, river bluffs and trails.

I walked, sometimes at a fairly steep angle. I stopped and looked. In about three hours, I might have seen 12 people (everyone else was watching those bowl games). For a good hour-and-a-half, I saw no one.

Mostly, I listened. To the profound silence.

I veered off the Brush Creek Trail to the Wildflower Trail

Eventually I reached the gravel bar at the Meramec River. This would be the last of the sunshine.

Four people are needed to span the circumference of this tree.

This doesn't look like a trail, but it is. About 300 feet, mostly in the direction of up.

The view from the top of the Overlook Trail.

Looking down over the edge of the bluff.

I took the path less traveled - although in this case, it made no difference; the two paths converged about 600 feet later.

The way back.