A few miles south of Kirksville, Missouri, Sugar Creek has carved a network of ridges and valleys from the surrounding Glaciated Plain. The latter, which covers most of the Upper Midwest, was plowed flat by the Pleistocene Ice sheets, then gave rise to a vast, tallgrass prairie and is now a landscape of cropfields, ranchlands and pockets of human habitation; natural woodlands are limited primarily to stream channels, lake basins and other topographic depressions.
Hiking in the Sugar Creek Conservation Area this morning, we experienced the feel of forested uplands, as if a pocket of Appalachia had risen amidst the farmlands of northern Missouri. In fact, we were walking through a wooded gorge, excavated by Sugar Creek and its tributaries; the ridgetops, though forested, were even with the surrounding plains. Such heavily dissected terrain is difficult to access for logging purposes and, though evidence of past harvesting is evident, a State Forest now cloaks most of the preserve. Accessed by several trail loops, the refuge is a popular destination for horseback riding.
Recent fall-like weather encouraged our visit but, alas, summer has returned. Though the creeks were nearly dry, the warm, humid weather brought out plenty of annoying insects; more disturbing were the spider webs that regularly stretched across the trail, slowing our progress, if we saw them, or clinging to our faces and clothes, when we did not. But the skies were clear, late summer wildflowers adorned the clearings and a host of woodland birds provided a welcoming chorus. As occurs on all excursions through nature, one must accept the good with the bad; she makes no special arrangements for human visitors.
