Devils Backbone Wilderness

Visit the land where a steep, narrow, ridge drops away, plunging into deep hollows. Welcome to Devils Backbone Wilderness Area. 

The area draws its name from a quarter mile long stretch of trail where the sides of the ridge fall away 10 feet from the path on either side.

With 6,687 acres inside the Wilderness boundary, this is an ideal area for day hiking or overnight backpacking. A long, narrow ridge supports the center of the Wilderness, with 1,020 feet as its highest “vertebra.”

Trails

There are 13 miles of moderate trail within the area. 

Thirteen miles of maintained foot and horse trails follow the Devils Backbone and four other ridges, dropping off into surrounding hollows in a forest dominated by oaks, hickories, and shortleaf pines. 

The Ozark Trail overlaps with the McGarr and Collins Ridge Trailheads for three miles as part of the North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail.

Devils Backbone Wilderness Area Trails

• Rating Moderate
• Length 13-miles
• Best Seasons Spring and Fall
• Surface Type unsurfaced, native material
• Average Trail Grade 10-12%
• Trail Markers there is limited trail marking
• Elevation 680 feet to 1,020 feet

Trail Sections/Segments

• Mary Hollow to Collins Ridge - 1.382 miles
• Collins Trailhead to McGarr Ridge - 2.71 miles
• McGarr Ridge (section 13) to McGarr Ridge (section 14) - 4.15 miles
• CC Highway to North Fork River - 6.33 miles

Terrain and Topography

After severe flooding in Missouri’s southeast in 2017, portions of Devil’s Backbone’s trails were washed out completely. Water from the North Fork River reached unprecedented heights, in some places debris exceeded 31 feet into the tree line.

The North Fork River stretches over 67 miles from Wright County until it joins the White River and flows into Arkansas. In the middle of its journey, it crosses ~1.5 miles of Devil’s Backbone Wilderness. The river’s flow is fed by Blue, McGarr and Amber Springs within the Wilderness Area. 

Vegetation and Wildlife

Wildlife

Scattered limestone glades and other openings provide some of the more favorable places to view wildlife. 

Bald eagles have been seen along the corridor, and in recent years nests have been spotted within the Wilderness.

White-tailed deer, gray squirrel, raccoon, coyote, red and gray fox, bobcat and striped skunk are some of the mammals native to the area. 

Wild turkey, red-tailed hawk, great horned owl, bald eagle, turkey vulture, great blue heron, pileated woodpecker and various songbirds can be seen. 

Among the reptiles common to the area are two poisonous snakes, the copperhead and the eastern timber rattler.

Vegetation

Dogwood, redbud and wild azaleas give the wilderness a wild burst of color in the spring. Fall isn’t to be outdone when the oaks, sweet gum, and sugar maple put on a show of yellow, oranges and reds.

Along the valleys and understories, a variety of vegetation exists, including an abundance of smaller trees, shrubs, grasses, and herbaceous plants. 

Scattered in the forest are gaps of limestone glades where insect and vascular plant diversity thrives. Here the tree cover opens up as soils become thin and light. Juniper and pine cannot dig a hold into the exposed rock, but flowering forbs and dry grasses thrive. 

Where the slopes drop off into the North Fork River, wild azaleas bloom.

Wilderness Area History

Before the Devil’s Backbone Wilderness was established, there were backcountry settlements, logging camps and livestock grazing. When the Forest Service acquired the land it inherited the history of this legacy as well. Now, when hiking on its trails, one can find vestiges of these settlements- mine shafts nestled in between rocks, abandoned grazing pastures and a skeleton network of old roads which nature is slowly reclaiming. 

Occasionally the trail is flanked by ruins of old rock walls used to herd sheep, and in places the trail so wide that one can practically feel the rumble of logging trucks which used to cross it. These abandoned roads form the basis for Norfolk Ridge and many of the unofficial trails hikers travel as they journey beyond the maintained portion of the Wilderness.

Early settlers who came to this land tried to eke out a living by clearing parts of the forest for pasture and grazing. Long after they gave up on taming the forest, the boney ridge was harvested during the logging fervor of the 1890’s. Large tracks of land were cut down and logs floated down the North Fork to meet the White River down below.

Today, this history is reflected in the age and composition of the existing tree stands. After the pine canopy was cut, oaks and hickories bounced back and quickly rose to take the place of the towering shortleaf pines, forming a heavy forest cover of an oak-hickory ecosystem. However, these groves contain many individuals who all will age at the same time and stage, contributing to a forest-wide phenomena of oak decline.