Jackson County gets a lot of flak for screwing up a lot of things.  The stadium leases, property tax bills, etc.    But one thing they did right and did better than evey other county in the metro area was to set up a really good system of county parks.  Jackson county has more parks, more acres of parkland, and more diversity among its parks. 

My favorite of all of the Jackson County parks is Monkey Mountain Nature Preserve in Grain Valley.  Neither a mountain nor inhabited by monkeys, the origin of the name is lost to legend -- the most common explanation (a circus train wreck) has been largely debunked.    During the early part of the 20th century Monkey Mountain was used by William Rockhill Nelson for sheep grazing as part of his massive Sni-a-Bar Farm.

I visit this park several times a year in all seasons to hike.  It is a peacful, quiet park.  Except for a sports complex in the NE corner built on what had previously been a cultivated field, it is entirely undeveloped save for the trails and a few smatterings of picnic tables.  Equestrians, hikers, and campers are the park's main users, so one can almost always expect total solitude here.    Only twice in my 6 years of hiking this park have I ever encountered another visitor outside the parking area.

The park has a rugged and varied terrain.  There is an elevation change of just under 300 feet.  On the north, west, and south sides of the park this elevation change is sudden and occurs in a dense forest with numerous limestone outcrops, while on the east side the elevation change is a gradual slope up a gently rolling meadow filled with wildflowers.  From the high point (indicated by a small marker) it is possible to see (tree leaves permitting) about 6-8 miles in each direction.  Two major streams converge in this park (Blue Branch and Sni-a-Bar) and numerous minor streams criss-cross throughout.  There are also several ponds scattered about, and even a good-sized waterfall.   

Because of the steepness of the west side of the park. the geography changes there frequently.  What was once a sinkhole entering a very small cave has become a small (4 foot) waterfall in a deep canyon.  On my last visit (last Sunday) I encountered a new mini-waterfall begining to form that hadn't existed just a week earlier.

The park is packed with wildlife, so much so that it's pretty much impossible to not encounter some of it close up.

Anyway, here's some pictures I took on my most recent hike there...


























It's kind of hard to tell what's going on in this next one, the water level was
too high and moving too fast for me to get all the way down to get a good
angle.  This is a 20-25 foot waterfall that spills into a rocky canyon.
















I was trying to photograph two hawks that were circling very near me.
But every time I tried to snap a picture, they flew far away.






These next few are of my favorite wildflower I found in the park.  I haven't looked any of these up yet
to see what they are, but these grew only on the limestone outcrops and so far I have found them on
only one set of the outcrops that I know about in the park.












This was a makeshift campsite I found in one of the group camping areas. 
Somone made a small table out of a flat rock and shoved it back in there.

Great report, thanks for sharing!

Isn't "Monkey Mountain" also the commonly used name for the large bluff just south of Argentine in KCK?

Amen!  Jackson County has an awesome park system.  Now we just need some multi-use trails to connect the parks with each other.

No monkeys, no mountain.....all I see is a place that needs a full time lawnmower.

looks great.  i'll definitely need to check this place out.

This reply is 9 months after you posted your photos but I'm pretty sure that the wildflowers you liked are Columbine.

Very cool park, never heard of it....

Yep...  a few days after I made the original post I did some searches for flowers found in Missouri and confirmed that they are indeed columbines. 

My house is built up next to some limestone outcrops and we get Columbine most of the summer. We also get Copperheads, but you get used to them. 

Nice pics by the way Scooter.

I took another hike up there this past weekend.   Here's a few pictures from the latest visit...



Foot bridge near the north end of the park...





Cardinal...




Every time I go there I find something new.   There's several wetland areas in the park.   Here's a bog I'd never seen before since there's usually too many leaves...





Old fence from back when this was a sheep farm...





Fallen trees...





Sni-a-bar Creek





The top end of a 20-ish foot waterfall (kinda dry on this particular day)




Bird of prey...




Looking north from near the summit...





Outcrops near the sound end of the park...





Trail to doom?





More of the outcrops near the south end of the park...












View of Oak Grove from near the summit...





Another bird of prey (there were 7 or 8 hovering nearby)





Trail leading away from the summit...





Defiant to the end...





In the city, cars must yield to pedestrians.   In the country, pedestrians must yield to horses...




View of Grain Valley from near the summit...





Since I have never been able to find a good trail map, with each hike I have been working on one of my own.   I believe I've mapped out about 80-90% of the major trails (bright red) but only about 50-60% of the minor trails (faint red)...







I'm leading a hike here on April 26.... free of charge.  If you want to see the place in person, follow the link below to sign up.  Leaves should be out and flowers should be in full bloom...

http://www.kctourwalk.com/walk4.html

This is actually a pretty cool place. I went there once back when I was in Boy Scouts and had a pretty good time.

awesome photos once again, scooter.  that looks like a great park.  kudos.

however, this photo makes me want to die.  seriously, how can anyone look at this photo and not think that we're doing something wrong? 

Thanks for the pictures, it looks like a great place for a dayhike!  I'm just curious, do you know the actual mile amount of the trails?

Or a brush fire.

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I'm praying it pours rain on your hike Sccoter, so I can selfishly hope to be able to make the reschedule since I can't make it on the 26th!

Officially I think it's 3.5 miles for the loop trail on thewest side of the park and 2 miles for the trail on the east side.   But I usually hike a combination of those plus the little side trails.    I think I hiked around 9 or 10 miles this past weekend.

The hike I'm leading later this month will be about 5 miles.

I too, went there with Boy Scouts, many times.  In those days it was owned by a big time farmer whose last name was Batman (cool).

Scoot, we used to stay in rustic cabins on the southwest corner of the property, built down into the cleavages in the limestone.  Are there remnants of these structures?  (it was a hundred years ago, or so)

this is a rip off man.
please show pictures of the monkeys.

Hmmm...

If you mean the far southwest corner (which I don't think is what you mean), I haven't explored that area yet.

If you mean up the hill more then not really, though I did find some pipes sticking out of the ground and some old timbers.  These were near a dried up pond off a faint trail that dead ended.  This was about 1-3 of the way up the hill.

Or is what you are talking about closer to the top of the hill?

I am taking a group of Boy Scouts out there in the next couple weeks. I would really like for them to see the waterfall, considering those are kind of hard to find in Mo..lol could you possible email me a map or something with the location on it? Or just send me the exact coordinates???? I would really appreciate it.

There is a Monkey Mountain Conservation Area in Holt County in NW Missouri on a State Highway T between Forbes, MO, and Amazonia, MO.

There is the same legend about the name as the Monkey Mountain area near Grain Valley--that monkeys escaped from a circus train passing through the area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Monkey+Mountain+Conservation+Area,+Oregon,+MO&hl=en&sll=39.903152,-94.959297&sspn=0.065843,0.160675&oq=Monkey+Mountain&hq=Monkey+Mountain+Conservation+Area,+Oregon,+MO&t=h&z=14

As a sidenote, not far from there along I-29, there was a farm when I was growing up that you could see from the interstate that had a monkey that rode on the backs of hogs in the pens near the barn. We used to always look there to see if we could see the monkey riding the hogs, as every once in awhile you would see it.