Cowards Hollow, a Missouri Natural Area in the Mark Twain Forrest, contains a number of significant geological features, as well as natural plant communities.
NOTICE! There have been reports of feral pig sightings in the area. Please stay aware of your surroundings and exercise caution with your dogs while in the area.
Coward's Hollow Legend
The legend behind the name for this natural area is that during the civil war one or possibly more men hid out in the large natural rock shelter on the south side of the stream near the falls that mark the beginning of a shut-in.
The roof of the rock shelter is soot covered, testifying to a great many camp fires having been tended under it's shelter. Game would have been plentiful here as well, and certainly a person could live on the land. While the shelter is near the Civil War era Bellevue-Pocahontas road, the area is remote as well, and no casual traffic would likely happen on the coward in his cave by accident.
As the past cachers in this area have noted, the choice of staying in this idyllic, serene setting, would be hard to resist compared to the horrors of that war. Even without a war, I was not eager to leave and long to return.
Coward's Hollow Cache History
On January first 2003 thehairyhillbilly hid an ammo can out here at Coward's Hollow. That cache was found by 18 people before it was archived early in April of 2006.
One of the people who had logged a DNF on it leading up to the archival was ricstone who placed a new cache on the ides of March 2009. His cache was found by eight people before it was also archived in October of 2012. it was subsequently found one more time after it was archived.
I went out on June 14 2014 to see if I could find either or both of those caches, but was unable to locate either of them. What I did find was a beautiful, serene place that is worthy of a visit even without a cache.
So I did what any self respecting cacher would do. I got permission to put some caches out there pronto. I'm putting out this cache, two other traditional caches and two earth caches to try to encourage you to go visit this singularly beautiful place.
The cache is an ammo can hidden under a small rock ledge, just large enough for the can, with a few chunks of chert rock stacked up in front to conceal it. From a distance it may be difficult to tell that the rocks aren't just one solid bigger rock.
If you cannot find the ammo can, please log the DNF and I will go out and check on it. Please do not attempt to replace the container. Please rehide the container exactly as you found it.
If you want company on the search, hit me up and we'll see if we can work out a good time to go out there together, I'll enjoy any opportunity to go back out to this location. I simply cannot stress how wonderful a spot this is.
Coward's Hollow Chert
The stream here at Coward's Hollow is formed out of an uncommon massive bed of chert rock, predominately a medium grey color, measuring up to forty feet in places. Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color (from white to black), but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown.
The harder Chert resists the weathering effects of the stream bed, while the softer sandstone gives way. This creates a stream bed with a high vertical relief consisting of falls, rapids and pools. As the sandstone wears away collection points form between the harder Chert Boulders that are left behind.
Seasonal flash flooding moves gravel, sand and trees down the stream bed, further eroding the bed and bringing more gravel and boulders down from the steep Chert cliffs on either side of the stream.
The shut-in begins with a 10 foot waterfall spilling down into a narrow stream that is scattered with massive chert boulders and lined by chert cliffs ranging from 5 to 20 feet in height.
You may encounter wildlife including potentially dangerous critters like snakes out here, though I did not. You may also encounter biting and stinging insects and arachnids like mosquitoes and ticks.
IMPORTANTObtaining this geocache will require you to cross a stream at the top of a 12 foot waterfall and then navigate, off trail along a steep bluff at the side of the creek to reach the hiding spot. With care and attention, this will not require any specialized equipment or training, but the potential for a fall is there and you should exercise a cautious approach with respect for the terrain at all times.
Please feel welcome to enter the rock shelter at Coward's Hollow. The zone biologist says they are not classified as caves and are not subject to the ban on entering caves on Mark Twain national Forest
Trail from parking area to Coward's Hollow is blazed with Natural Area markers like the one depicted in the image below as well as some smaller ones that bear the same symbol for Missouri Natural Areas. 