Your Guide to the Ozarks
Winona is the gateway to Missouri's elk country. The Peck Ranch driving tour starts down the gravel roads east of town, Rocky Falls pours into its swimming hole on Rocky Creek, and a century-old turbine mill stands in the same creek's shut-in canyon. Places are grouped by distance from downtown, so you can plan around how far you feel like going.
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.
A 40-foot cascade pours over pink and purple volcanic rock into a swimmable pool on Rocky Creek, a short walk from its parking lot and picnic area.
A spring pours from a cave opening in a bluff and drops about 15 feet into a millpond beside a small 1927-1929 mill and an 1851 log homestead cabin, in a rustic Forest Service picnic ground south of Winona.
Walter Klepzig's little turbine mill still stands in the shut-in canyon of Rocky Creek, unsigned and easy to pass by, at the end of a dirt road or a hike from Rocky Falls.
Missouri's seventh largest spring pours about 81 million gallons a day past a bright red 1894 roller mill, in the most photographed corner of the Jacks Fork country.
A Park Service backcountry campground and year-round boat ramp at River Mile 37 on the Current River: six reservable sites, a vault toilet, and some of the darkest night skies in the park.
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.
The deepest spring in Missouri rises cobalt blue under a bluff on the Current River, filling a look-but-don't-touch pool inside a state natural area.