Missouri forest service roads

Myself and a buddy are thinking about taking a long weekend in the next monthish and thinking about hitting up the service roads in or around Mark Twain National Forest. We emailed the forest service info center and they're mailing us all of the maps for 29 counties so we can plan our agenda. Wondering if anyone has been or has any ideas of anything better in that area? We planned on taking a long weekend and camping while we're down. Thanks for any info!

 

Any idea what counties you will hit yet? Care to post a link to the maps once you have them? Sorry I can't help much, but if you plan on being in Boone County I can direct you to some destinations to check out.

Also, as I just bought my first Tacoma, this is my first post.

 

We haven’t decided completely yet but we’re not planning on coming until the 26th so we have a little time yet. The maps came in the mail and they’re honestly not that awesome lol. Both my buddy and myself have Taco’s so we’re both driving down. We also talked about possibly hitting up northern Arkansas since we’ll be close. I don’t know where Boone county is so I’ll look it up

 

Did anybody get to check out those MO forest roads? I got some of the forestry maps too but agree they are not too helpful...There appears to be a trail (may only be open seasonal) in between Berryman campground and Brazil Creek campground somewhere between Steelville and Potosi, MO. I'll post the map. Anybody close to the area know about this and whether it is worth looking into?

 

We did end up heading down and just randomly picking an area and searching. We used the maps to guide us as there are a lot of trails that look fun, but aren’t legal service roads so if you get caught on them they would frown upon it lol. I did a trip report in the group tacos in the St. Louis area. I’d post a link but I’m clueless as to how to do much of anything on this forum lol. We searched a bit around the rolla area and there wasn’t much in that area worth while. We ended up staying in the paddy creek wilderness area camp ground and it was a beautiful area to explore. If you search that sub forum 10-15 pages back or so I’m sure you’ll see my write up with more details.

 

Also, I looked at the pic you posted. The highlighted yellow area I believe is a foot trail, not a motor vehicle trail

 

What are some of the destinations in Boone County? I lived there for several years, but haven't been back in a long time.

I've been through that area before. We camped in that area this past spring. We tried camping at Brazil Creek and Berryman, but they were both full. From what I remember, they were very small. We ended up camping at Hazel Creek and explored around Parole Lake. Some of these roads in the area do seemingly disappear, and can be very narrow at times. You'll also run into some interesting people.

 

And don’t be afraid of pinstripes. Most of the “roads” we were on were super overgrown and it would’ve taken all day to clear 2-3 miles so we just plugged away and took the stripes lol