Length/Rating: 20 Miles/Moderate

Other Recreation Activities: Canoeing, birdwatching, sightseeing, photography, picnicking, camping, mushroom/berry picking. Hunting is allowed during season. Nearby Facilities: Glade Top Scenic Byway, Hercules Glades Wilderness, Chadwick Motorcycle Use Area.

Bull Shoals Lake, Branson, Table Rock State Park, Wilson's Creek Battlefield National Park.

Stepping out of shady woodland into dazzling savanna, you are suddenly feasted with countless black-eyed Susans in vivid yellow and the blue haze on the horizon. This is your reward if you visit Swan Creek Horse Trail in August. In springtime, it is all different. Then you will encounter Missouri evening primrose, larkspur, and purple beard-tongue. Southern Missouri's charm has many faces!

Most of this 20-mile horseback, hiking, and mountain bike trail is located east of Swan Creek. Between its sand and gravel banks, the creek winds through a lush forest intermixed with glades. (It eventually joins Bull Shoals Lake at Forsyth.) The trail system spreads like a web in the rolling hills of its upper watershed. Bar-K Wrangler Camp is located on the west bank of the creek, equipped with picnic tables and hitching posts. Tin Top Trailhead is off UU Highway on the east. With an extra vehicle, riders can travel one-way, or use one of the loops to return to their starting point.

Tin Top Section is four miles long and connects these two staging areas. If you begin your trip from the east, you can enjoy a leisurely ride under the oaks and shortleaf pines. Here the oak species consist of white, post, chinkapin, black, blackjack, and northern red oak. There are hickories, slippery and winged elms, as well as maples. Occasionally you come across an ash tree, or a honeylocust with long thorns on its branches and curled dark brown pods dangling in the breeze.

In the woods, flowering dogwood bears flame-red fruits in late summer. The rough-leaved dogwood, also present, is a close relative of the State tree. Other understory species are redbud, serviceberry, black cherry, and blueberry. Persimmon is abundant, after which a valley in this area was named. Smooth, aromatic, and winged sumac can all be found here. In various places, grapevines are clinging on trees large and small, whereas Christmas ferns guard their feet.

There is no shortage of wildflowers: aster, dogbane, wild rose, wild rye, sunflower, catbrier, goldenrod, and buckbrush. Bees and butterflies hover above them; grey squirrels and three-toed box turtles move underneath. As your eyes adore the scene, your ears are entertained by the songs of nuthatches, phoebes, vireos, and many other birds. And the cicadas never cease to buzz....

After a mile and a half, the trail forks off to Beer Can Alley Section. If you continue on Tin Top, you will run into a few open areas. This is where the Ozark forest meets the prairie. Here you can see more eastern red cedar trees on the limestone ledges; some of them are twisted and gnarled; and some rather large in size. Near the end of the trail, you come to a pasture where crickets, grasshoppers and dragonflies are. Turkey vultures soar in the sky and American crows sweep up and down. Over Swan Creek, kingfishers fly as the water slowly flows by. In and around the water, there are minnows, crawdads, frogs and tadpoles, and other creatures. Horseshoe Falls is near the trailhead.

If you take Beer Can Alley instead, a breathtaking panorama awaits you on the glades. Nearby there are a number of knobs around 1,200 feet, decorated with trees on top. After a turn or two, the trail descends the slope; sometimes you are on huge rocks, and sometimes on the pieces that have long broken from them. As you come to a fork, Sly Top Section is on your left. On the right, Bald Knob. Both will take you back to Bar-K Wrangler Camp.

You can cross Swan Creek by wading, or in some places on stepping stones. Vegetation in the wetland is somewhat different -- wildflowers such as purple ironweed are blooming, along with the white-colored soapwort and the yellow wing-stem. In the prairie grass, you may cause an alert among a flock of wild turkeys.

There are many other trail sections available for the riders' enjoyment. Math Branch Section is located to the north; the trail follows the stream which is a branch of Swan Creek. Parallel to Tin Top are Shoo Fly Section and a spur trail branching off to link back to Tin Top. On the east side, the Patterson Hollow Section connects Tin Top and Whoopin' Willie Trailheads.

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