Peck Ranch Conservation Area

Missouri's elk country: a roughly 23,000-acre conservation area near Winona with a self-guided elk viewing driving tour that starts at the area office, a viewing deck over a beaver pond, primitive camping, Ozark Trail miles, and four natural areas, at the end of about seven miles of gravel road.

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Peck Ranch is where Missouri's elk came back. This is a big, remote conservation area, roughly 23,000 acres of fields, forest, and glades in Carter and Shannon counties, and the Conservation Department runs a self-guided driving tour through its refuge that starts at the area office and is marked along the way. You stay in your vehicle, take photographs from it, and watch the open ground at the hours elk like best: right after sunrise and right before sunset. The Department is plain that no sighting is guaranteed, but the drive itself runs through fields, forests, and glades where deer and other wildlife are part of the scenery.

Getting there is part of the commitment. Every Department direction runs from Winona: Route H east about five miles, then about seven miles of gravel, ending at the office building cluster where the tour begins. The gravel roads may need a vehicle with real ground clearance, and stream crossings can close them at high water. The tour is open sunrise to sunset seven days a week, with closures for managed deer hunts, the fall firearms deer season, and bad weather, and a spring variation that starts the tours at 1 p.m. during turkey season. There is no check-in station; the Department points visitors who want maps and elk information to Twin Pines Conservation Education Center in Winona.

The area is much more than the tour loop. About ten miles of gravel road circle the refuge, a short nature trail from the office reaches a viewing deck over a beaver pond, and five designated primitive camping areas, picnic areas, a firearms range, and an archery range are spread across the area. Nine to eleven miles of the Ozark Trail cross it, depending on which Department source you read, and four designated natural areas sit inside the boundary, including Stegall Mountain, whose glades and old fire tower are also reached on a separate trip through the Rocky Falls site. The ground carries an older story too: the Department's brochure documents Midco, the iron-company town that once stood here. One limit is absolute: there is no fishing on Peck Ranch, the brochure says so in so many words.