Pees Hollow starts with a deep descent, which can be tricky in wet and frozen leaves like I encountered today. After you get down the the steep part it levels off for a nice hike with no sudden rises or drops until the last portion of the trail, which is a challenging 500 foot ascent back to the fire tower area from the lowest point at Bushy Creek.
Once again, I traveled through Hercules Glades with my hiking companion Kayleigh. This is our fourth trip and final trip to Hercules Glades this month, which means we have hiked a combined 37 miles plus through the national forest this month.
The fastest access to Pees Hollow is from the fire tower area access from MO125. I remember climbing the tower when I was a Boy Scout in Troop 1, which provided a spectacular view of the entire Hercules Glades area. The national forest department has closed the tower off so the public is no longer allowed to go to the top. The tower also makes a nice landmark when you drive to Hercules Glades. You can see it just south of Bradleyville.
Like the rest of Hercules Glades, Pees Hollow offers a variety of different landscapes including deciduous and coniferous forest, grassland, and even some steep rocky cliffs. As well, the animal life in Hercules Glades is definitely a mix. From tarantulas to armadillos and rattle snakes to deer, bears, and coyotes, there is unique and common living in the glades if your are fortunate enough to see it. I have discovered that viewing animals at Hercules Glades is more of a challenge than in other trails in Southwest Missouri, even though there are plenty of signs the animals are around.
While almost all of Hercules Glades seems void of the impact of man, Pee Hollow's has a couple of man-made landmarks including this truck cab that you can see along the trail and the front end of a antique Dodge pickup truck. Look at how shiny that chrome is. They don't make it like that anymore, do they?
Along the Bushy Creek part of the trail, there are these unique sponge-looking green plants. I don't know what they are, but they sure to add unique color to the winter trail.
Hercules Glades has several areas where rains will create beautiful falls. Everyone usually hikes to the falls on Long Creek, but Bushy Creek will create some beautiful images after a heavy rain. Unfortunately, like Long Creek, the falls were dry on Bushy Creek too.
The one thing you need to consider when hiking Pees Hollow is the trail often branches off unexpectedly, which the US Forest Service map at the check in station doesn't show. Looking at an aerial view of the area on Google Earth compared to the tracks on GPS shows the trails parallel each other in most cases and often leads you to either flatter or more challenging terrain. Just something to note since it can be frustrating to see the trail go off in to different directions when the map doesn't show the split.
