04/23/07

Graham Cave State Park (permalink)

graham cave state park missouri friends travel outdoors

As part of my trip last weekend, I visited Graham Cave State Park (google map here). I was there primarily because the park is close to I-70, and is an inexpensive place to spend the night camping. However, the park turned out to be a nice place to visit for other reasons as well.

The park is named for Graham Cave, a shallow cave cut into a hillside which has great historical significance. University of Missouri Archaeologists discovered evidence in the cave suggesting that it housed human occupants as long as 10,000 years ago, much earlier than historians previously believed possible. Today, the cave itself is accessible to visitors to the park and is kept as a historical monument. The cave site is very well kept and features a number of informative placards pointing out locations of interest. I found the visit to the cave to be interesting, but not alone worth the trip.

The park is very scenic. The majority of the park is hilly and wooded with a few creeks and streams crossing through. The rocky hills offer good scenery, but are not severe enough to deter casual hikers visiting for the variety of marked walking trails. One larger creek can be accessed a small boat ramp and looks very promising for fishing. The park is segmented into several areas each with it's own parking, so you can spread out from other park visitors if you prefer. These open park areas offer many useful features such as covered and uncovered picnic areas and several playgrounds. Overall, it seems like a good place to spend an afternoon with friends or family, or just to go on a quiet hike through the woods.

As mentioned prior, our stay was primarily for camping. The campgrounds were clean and well kept, though they were positioned a little too close to each other for my preferences. We opted for a basic camp site which included just a parking spot, a picnic table and a fire pit. Some of the campgrounds offered extra amenities such as electrical outlets or water spigots. While we did not use them, there were two separate bathroom facilities with showers and laundry machines. Despite those good features, the campgrounds' proximity to I-70 causes constant traffic noise that can distract from the peacefulness of the thick woods.

As a place to stop and rest on our trip to St. Louis, Graham Cave State Park more than provided for our needs. I am not sure the park is worth the drive from Kansas City otherwise, but people closer to the site or those interested in very early American history may disagree.