Castor River Shut-Ins - A Day Trip With Yose

The Castor River Shut-Ins are a natural area in Fredericktown Missouri. Just a short walk down a well maintained trail is an absolutely fantastic natural area with pools, rapids, waterfalls and pink granite and ryolite canyon walls.

It’s just an hour and forty five minutes drive from St. Louis down highway 55. We took our Aussie shepherd mix Yose for a nice day hike and water exploration in early April of 2021. It was about 75 degrees for a high and light humidity. There were little to no annoying insects and we only saw one small horn nose snake along our entire walk.

We spent the early afternoon exploring for a good spot to hang out, playing around in the water with Yose, sunning our legs on the pink granite and rhyolite boulders that make up the canyon. It really became obvious on this trip how much we miss our dog Hang, a yellow lab that passed away about 5 weeks ago now. He was the glue that our little family was molded around. We reminisced about “how good he was” and what a “good good boy” he was for a little while and enjoyed mental visions of Hank expertly navigating the various pools of the shut-ins with grace and ease.

After a snack of honey roasted peanuts and a pull or two from my flask of peanut butter whiskey, we adventured back toward the trail head on the other side of the water.

We passed a backpacking campsite we had used with the dogs a couple years back and we paused to discuss the happenings of that night with fond memories. The hike out was short and simple, much like that which we took in, and the day concluded around 4:30 pm, allowing us to arrive back in St. Louis in time for dinner.

I would highly suggest a wading staff and some good shoes for this if you plan to cross the water below the large falls with a camera in your hand like I did. I almost bit it a few times and barely escaped with me gear in tact.

Cheers.