Cardareva Bluff Natural Area

A 95-acre natural area where a dolomite bluff rises about 500 feet above the Current River, split between the Park Service and the Conservation Department, met best from a float down from Powder Mill or a map-and-compass walk along the bluff top.

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Cardareva Bluff is a 95-acre designated natural area where a west-facing dolomite bluff stands about 500 feet above a scenic stretch of the Current River. Ownership is split the way this river country often is: the National Park Service owns the 55-acre riverfront portion and the Missouri Department of Conservation owns the 40-acre upland, and the area sits inside both the Current River Conservation Area and Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

Most people meet this bluff from the water. Floaters put in at the Park Service's Powder Mill access and come almost eight river miles down to where the bluff rises on the east bank, with Logyard access about a mile and a half below it. The Department points floaters at the view up to the bluff top, and names the fishing along this reach: smallmouth bass, goggle-eye, walleye, and suckers.

Coming by land takes more work, and the Department says so plainly: from the Highways 106 and HH junction, follow HH south about four and a half miles, park along Conservation Area Road 24 just east of the highway, and follow the old forest ridge road along the bluff top, with a map and compass recommended. There is no developed overlook, no trail system, and no facility of any kind waiting at the top, just the bluff, the woods, and the river valley below. The map pin marks the bluff top, not the roadside parking, which has no published coordinates.