I woke up at home very early on Thursday and was out the door by 2:00 AM. I had plans to meet with Peter at 10:00 in Missouri, but I still had to drive to my campsite and pitch the tent. I allowed myself very little wiggle room. I arrived at the campsite around 8:15 and threw my tent together. Then I left for our rendezvous point near Benton and arrived at 10:00 sharp. After a FULL day of field herping the Ozarks (about two hours west), I headed back to camp in the pitch dark night and decided to abandon the idea of building a campfire, as I had been awake and either driving or hiking for over twenty straight hours. I slept well that night.
Also on that trip, I spent a good deal of time with Nathan (who had arrived late the following night) and Chad and his family. We hiked up and down rocky glades, power line cuts, swamps, roadsides, and everywhere in between. Somewhere in between, I spent nearly an entire day to myself on a personal mission - to find the lost Bost cabin.
Here are a few select shots, all but one courtesy of my iPhone.
The aftermath of herping a long-abandoned and dilapidated homestead in the Missouri Bootheel with Peter. Took a good 45 minutes to pull all of these things out.
Peter and I hiked down a rocky canyon to a railroad embankment strewn with old railroad ties and other debris. It turned out to be a really good site. Here is Peter with a large western rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus).
Peter spotted this tiny - TINY - neonate western pygmy rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius streckeri). It was so small it fit under the lens cap to my DSLR camera (which I only pulled out once on the entire trip - I was lazy - for this animal). It really was a stunning little gem.
We hiked along these railroad tracks because, frankly, it's easier than the alternative.
A lot of really cool animals were found in the Ozarks, Here is a striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus) I found underneath a flat rock on a rocky hillside.
A young racer (Coluber constrictor) found nearby.
A view near the spot I caught the little racer. I could sit here all day.
On the way back to the car, we walked this dusty road and saw a familiar green rope in the distance...
...of course it was a rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus) that I moved out of harms way.
Back at the rendezvous point, we walked a sand prairie for a while until it got dark.
The next morning, I ventured out to find the Bost cabin. I ran into a few friends along the way. This is an eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina).
Big Muddy River.
A green frog (Rana clamitans) missing a forelimb. Seemed to get around just fine.
I observed this cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous) for about half an hour as it tried on different crayfish burrows for size. It's the time of year when a lot of herps begin thinking ahead toward hibernation.
A view of the cypress tupelo swamp.
After hiking in the rain for about an hour, I finally found the mysterious Bost cabin. This cabin was built in the 1850s as part of the tiny hamlet known as Scanlin Spur. The hamlet no longer exists and this is all that remains of a time when humans attempted to clear and farm Boss Island. You can enter and explore this cabin. I did, and it was very dark and musty. Definitely a bucket list item checked off.
A nearby wooded hillside strewn with large boulders.
If you don't know you're in the tiny town of Vienna, you may think that turning right will take you to two different brands of hot dogs.
A powerline cut that Nathan, Chad, his wife, son, and I visited. Previously this proved to be a site rich in herp species and numbers; however, the site had been recently mostly destroyed by bulldozers. We found very little here. This is a shot of a portion the bulldozer couldn't reach.
At a nearby swamp complex, we found four caudates - marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum), central newts (Notophthalmus viridescens), small-mouth salamanders (Ambystoma texanum) and mole salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum).
This is the same swampy ditch where Chad and I had accidentally spooked the wild turkey the previous year.
A truly massive oak.
This is the gas station in Grand Tower, Illinois. There is nothing grand about Grand Tower or its gas station. One ancient pump and a dimly lit, sketchy little general store. I LOVE it.
On my last night, Nathan and I took the bluff faces of snake road to look for cave salamanders (Eurycea lucifuga). At the mercy of our cheap flashlights, we hiked in pitch blackness while someone - or something - was either taunting us in the distance or just making a commotion. Unsettling. But the salamanders made it worth it.
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