Johnson Shut-Ins

Last week we went to the Johnson Shut-Ins State Park in Middlebrook, Missouri to camp.  We encountered cloudy weather most of the time but had a burst of sunshine the day before we left so we shot some pretty good photos that day.  The Park is very beautiful and the facilities are excellent. 

We had water, electricity, and sewer (a full hook-up) and the site was a concrete pad (instead of gravel or dirt).  Yay!  The trailer stays so much cleaner that way and so does our dog, Lefty!

This place has a very interesting story to tell.  First, the mountains that surround the shut-ins, called the St. Francois Mountains, were formed over 1.4 billion years ago, when volcanic eruptions created the hard rhyolite bedrock.  Hundreds of millions of years eroded the rhyolite and formed the knobs of these mountains.  As water passed over the cracks in the rhyolite, it shaped narrow channels. As sand and gravel passed over these channels, even deeper and wider channels were created.  This process continues today and has formed potholes, plunge pools, and small waterfalls in this section of the Black River.  This is a great place to play in the summer and makes it one of the favorite parks to visit.

A major event occurred in December of 2005.  The Taum Sauk reservoir which sat above this area, breached and sent 1.3 billion gallons of water down the mountain into the Johnson Shut-Ins State Park.  Tons of trees, debris and boulders scoured the mountainside and destroyed facilities in the park.  It also altered the East Fork of the Black River.  

These photos show where the water traveled down the mountain and left the debris in the Park basin.  The red arrow shows the approximate place where the reservoir was.  The yellow borders show the wide area scoured by the running water.  There are photos in the interpretive center that show how much debris, boulders, and mud were deposited in these fields.  It is amazing how much work went into the restoration of this park.

It has now been redeveloped and among the new facilities constructed were a new Interpretive Center and campground.  This is such a fascinating place with so much history.  Many geologists from all over the world come to this place to see the billion-year-old rocks that were released into the valley by this catastrophe.  The hiking trails are numerous. The beautiful and historic Ozark Trail also passes through this park.  There is also an equestrian trail and campground.  What a great place to explore on horseback.  You can find more information on this park here.

Here are a few photographs of this area.

This one shows a closer view of the debris field and one of the rocks showing the rock layers that time built.

I am in the middle of the shut-ins rocks going toward some of the waterfalls.  It is a big place as you can see from this photo.

Visit my Flickr page to see more photos of the park and shut-ins.  

Hope you enjoyed the visit!