Best Hiking Near St. Louis (Columbia, Ballwin: home, things to do, farms)

[WestCoDude]

Does anybody have recommendations for a good hiking spot within an hour or so of St. Louis? So far I've been doing the Lewis and Clark trail south of Weldon Springs in St. Chuck County--but it gets really muddy and, after so many times, a little old. Are there any quality hiking spots near St. Louis? I've heard that closer to Farmington there are many good spots. Would this be near the wine country?

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Have you tried the Shaw Nature Reserve? You do have to pay for it, though.

There are a lot of lakes and walking trails around here, but it's about 3 hours from STL. Farmington is about halfway in between. I've never taken a hike there, though.

This park will be about an hour outside of St. Louis
Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

This one will be about an hour and 10 minutes from St. Louis, just north of Alton
Pere Marquette State Park - Grafton, Illinois

About an hour north of st. louis near Trpy. MO
Cuivre River State Park - Trails - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

There's Creve Coeur county park, but the site doesn't say anything about hiking.
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Greensfelder County Park, about 40 minutes outside STL around the Eureka, Ballwin, Glencoe area
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If you want to go to Farmington there's St. Joe State Park there
St. Joe State Park - Home - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

There's meramec park near Sullivan as well
Meramec State Park - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

St. Francois State Park near Farmington
St. Francois State Park - Home - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

If you wanted to make a weekend of it Lake of the Ozarks is a great place, about 3 hours from St. Louis. There are also things to do around it. You may want to spend more than a weekend, though.
Lake of the Ozarks State Park - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR
There are also a lot of parks in that area:
Stockton State Park - Home - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR
Harry S Truman State Park - Home - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR
Wilson's Creek National Battlefield - Wilsons Creek National Battlefield (U.S. National Park Service)

Illinois
Carlylelake.com Guide to Carlyle Lake
Rend Lake Information (broken link) (2 hours)
Fish and Wildlife Service (2 hours)

About an hour north of St. Louis there are a couple parks where the Missouri meets the Mississippi
The Big Muddy Joins the Mighty Miss
Riverlands Way
Edward "Ted" and Pat Jones-Confluence Point State Park - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR
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Parks:
Parks Division: Park Descriptions
Parks & Recreation Department - Welcome

[st. louie louie]

Cross the JB bridge (interstate 255) and head south towards Columbia. Just before getting to Columbia make a right and head towards the river to Bluff Road. It's a nice peaceful flat ride with farms on your right and bluffs on your left.

[WestCoDude]

Have anybody been to either Washington State Park or Bell Mountain--south of Potosi? I'm thinking of trying one of them out this weekend.......

[Bobster]

Many of the State parks have excellent trails! STLCards mentioned the ones at Lake of the Ozarks....I helped build a couple of those trails when I was in the YCC back in 1976!

I just went hiking this past weekend at Busch Wildlife on the Lost Valley trail...a bit muddy, but not terrible considering the amount of snow that we had that is melting!

I couldn't figure out how to post the pics here...but here's a link to an article that I wrote on my blog that has some nice pics of Lost Valley Trail