Aug 07, 2017 — I learned of this beautiful loop last year just after leaving the Ozarks, so it's been on my to-do list and beckoning me back to the area. On a map, it just seemed like it had a lot of everything I love about hiking in the Ozarks, so I was pretty excited to make it my finale hike for 2017 southeast hiking.
Google Maps doesn't take you exactly to the trailhead (coordinates for trailhead above), but it's easy to get there. Navigate to the coordinates above which take you to the Shore Lakes Campground. From the entrance, follow signs to the trailhead to the north, within the campground. After parking at the Shores Lake parking area (accessed from within the campground), I followed the West Loop of the Shores Lake Loop, which skirted the side of a pretty ridge, with nice views of the forest before joining with the bright blue clear waters of White Rock Creek. The colors were totally unexpected, and I don't know if the creek is always this gorgeous, but I spent a bit of time staring at it as the trail winded along the ridge above the creek before it led me to a beautiful waterfall that required a dip. The trail then ascended rapidly up to the summit of White Rock Mountain on a fairly well-maintained trail. Shortly after meeting with the Ozark Highlands Trail, a side trail leads to the summit of White Rock Mountain where there is a stunning overlook into the Ozark National Forest, including a look down onto the ridge which I had come up. There was also a "lodge" at the summit for OHT through hikers, and since the door was open, I let myself in and filled up water before continuing back to where I left the OHT along my intended loop.
The fun sort of stopped here: after a full day of no ticks and beautiful, changing scenery, the trail got more narrow and didn't have much to offer. Just lots of trees, and eventually, three tick nymph bombs. Three. Fortunately, I had tape and could remove most of the little demon spawn, but it definitely was a stressful experience. They clearly could (and would) strike at any time. The trail felt like it took forever back down, and it completely missed a potentially wonderful opportunity to follow the Salt Fork Creek, which it paralleled just far enough away that it was out of sight and mostly out of earshot. As soon as I got back to the trailhead, covered up to my waist in tick babies and numerous adult ticks (they really are terrible this year), I threw out all my clothes into a garbage dumpster, which housed a live and terrified raccoon that obviously scared the crap out of me. I found a forest service volunteer who said he'd deal with it, and then showed me a video of a bear that was feet from my car earlier that day. I went to wash off in a river and was bitten by four horseflies. And then I got the itch of poison ivy all over my legs. Time to leave the east for a while.
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