My Corner Online
Prairie State Park
Prairie State Park is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a while now because the idea of being in a "prairie" setting is something that just sounds relaxing and wonderful. The park is located at 128 NW 150th Lane, Mindenmines, Baron County, Missouri on the western side of the State. We visited on June 25, 2023. I've often wondered what the difference between a prairie and a savannah and a meadow and a grassland are and I have studied the definitions and still cannot fully grasp it, but they all sound like lovely areas where tall flowers and grasses blow in the wind. One definition is that prairies have virtually no tree cover (less than 10 percent) and savannas have less than 30 percent tree cover, but that still sounds almost the same to me to the visual eye.
There is bison in this park, but the information says that you must drop by the office to be told where they are located on that day and we arrived at a time when the office was closed. A large portion of the park is fenced off so that the bison cannot leave the prairie. The gate entrances have a textured surface you can drive over, but that the bison would not want to walk over.
There are many trails in the park, but again you should check with the park office before going on a hike to know where the bison are located for your own safety. There are several trails outside of the fenced area that you can walk on at any time. The Path of the Earth People Trail and the Path of the Sky People Trail are two of those trails and they are also dog friendly because of their location. So while in the park, we merely drove through and enjoyed the prairie.
Here the darker purple part of the map is the fenced area where the bison live and the lighter purple area are the places more open. There is one main road through the park, so it is hard to get lost. In the white area on the map at the top left is where the camping sites are located. This is outside the fenced barrier, but at the camping sites there is the Coyote Trail that goes back into the fenced area. the campsite are primitive, but actually very nice. We almost decided to stay there.
There were lots of wildflowers to enjoy too. Here is some milkweed and a monarch butterfly (can you spy it?)
The trails are in wide open prairie views and merely mown grass to make the path.
This is the road through the park.
This is the Coyote Trail that begins near the camping area.
Here is a caution sign that bison roam freely, but we did not see any.
We did stop at the Path of the Earth People trail and took a short walk up the trail. It was so incredibly hot and our day was getting late, so we did not go far. For the distance that I did go, I greatly enjoyed the feel of the prairie environment and the wild flowers. The wind blowing across the plains feeling was lovely too.
It is written on the internet, "tallgrass prairies once covered more than a third of Missouri; today, less than one percent."
