Places to Go: Three Creeks CA

Bad math makes for one great outdoor opportunity

It’s the classic case of bad math adding up to a great outdoor experience. Take three creeks, add two trails, and you get one great outdoor opportunity. That’s the equation visitors encounter at Three Creeks Conservation Area (CA) in Boone County.

“Three Creeks, being right south of Columbia, gets lots of use on it basically year-round,” said Three Creeks CA Manager Bob Rives. “But during the summer months into the fall, we usually just see a lot of hiking, camping, and then it’s got an active horseback riding community as well.”

Fueling this activity is the area’s 8-mile Three Creeks Trail, a multiuse trail allowing hiking, biking, and horseback riding, and its 3-mile hiking-only Turkey Creek Trail. Running through the 1,500-acre, primarily wooded area, the trails’ terrain provides users with a variety of views, Rives said.

“Having the Bonne Femme, the Bass, and the Turkey creeks — making the Three Creeks — creates a lot of bluffs, so you get a lot of topography and you get a lot of different natural communities and forest types, from bottomland forest all the way up to woodlands pretty quickly over the landscape.”