Hughes Mountain, MO

Elevation: 1201 feet
Overall elevation gain: 391 feet
Distance: 1.57 miles round trip
Class: 1
Location: south of Potosi, Missouri
Date: July 4, 2013

Looking north from near the summit. The route to the summit comes from this direction. 

Hughes Mountain is a 1,201-foot high "mountain" in the St. Francois portion of the Ozarks in eastern Missouri. The area is managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation and has a short trail going from a parking lot to the summit of the mountain for about a 1.5-mile round trip hike.


What makes Hughes Mountain unique is that its summit is a feature called the Devil's Honeycomb, which is a jointed rhyolite outcropping similar in structure to Devil's Tower in Wyoming or Devil's Postpile in California.

The first outcropping that you reach

The trail up the mountain starts out passing through a meadow for a short distance before entering forest and climbing up the mountain. A short distance in the trail reaches an exposed rock with somewhat of a view. The trail continues on from here passing through both small rocky glades and forest patches before emerging in the large, rocky glade that covers the top of the mountain, including a ways below the summit. Once in this glade the trail can be barely visible, but just follow the most worn-down path and keep gaining elevation. I think that the most interesting part of the area is the summit because it has great views to go along with the Devil's Honeycomb.

The view from the summit

The view towards the east from the summit

I did this hike after hiking Buford Mountain and before going to Bootleg Access.

For more information see my track on AllTrails.

The glade below the summit

The beginning of the trail through the meadow

© Copyright 2017 Matthew Pintar. All rights reserved.




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