Driving time from the DragonFly-In
B&B: 10 minutes
Among the many nearby geologic attractions in
Missouri’s ancient granite St. Francois Mountains, the most
curious is the herd of ponderous pink pachyderms in Elephant
Rocks State Park. Here, over time, weather and water
have sculpted a vast outcrop more than a billion years old
into massive rounded behemoths.
Many of the elephant rocks are within the
7-acre Elephant Rocks Natural Area. The largest of the
herd, Dumbo the patriarch, stands 27 feet tall and measures
35 feet long by 17 feet wide, tipping the scales at a hefty
680 tons. Dumbo and the rest of the herd stand
end-to-end like a petrified train of circus elephants,
marching across an expansive bare granite bald.
A circular loop trail, one mile in length,
leads around the entire herd. This route is named the
Braille Trail, as it can also accommodate people with visual
or physical disabilities. Along the trail or its side
branches are the “Fat Man’s Squeeze,” a narrow gap between
two huge boulders, and “The Maze,” where visitors wander 100
feet among blocks of broken granite slabs.
