We have 21 sites that just have electric, 14 basic and then we have 14 walk-in sites where you basically park and you hike in to a wooden platform and camp in the woods.
#Johnsons shut in full#
“We have 10 sites for equestrian users we have 20 sites that have the full hookup sewer electric and water. The park has increased its capacity to 79 sites that are much more diversified. The old park had 50 general sites 25 electric and 25 non-electric. Johnson’s Shut Ins State Park has been gradually re-opening over the last year, and now it’s officially at full operation after opening its camping facilities at the end of April. Obviously, because we built our orientation center which is right in front of the scour where they water came before,” Ayres said. “We know that where this building is right in the line (of the water’s path), and we all feel comfortable with the new construction. The park superintendent's home that was swept away by the rushing waters sat where this day use shelter is today, with the new visitor center behind But that’s what they did, after cleaning up the destruction left behind by a billion gallons of water from the Taum Sauk reservoir breach. In fact, Ayres says he’s never heard of it happening before. It isn’t often that a state park gets to start from scratch. Johnson’s Shut-Ins was mostly a rudimentary park in 2005 there wasn’t much beyond the shut-ins and a campground. We’ve been having just tons of interest from local colleges and colleges all over to come and actually get to go up in that scour and look at some of those neat features,” Ayres said. “It’s uncovered rock formation and geology that you would have never got to see before at all. There’s now a hiking trail that takes people into the scour. The scour tore away 30 to 40 feet of rock in the mountainside, revealing layers of sediment. But it’s also made history itself a part of the park. What used to be the campgroundĪyres says like it or not, the disaster is part of the history of the park now. “They decided to leave the boulder field area, to show people exactly how much rock was brought down,” Ayres said, as he looked out over the field full of the large stones. The huge scour in the side of the mountain left behind by the rushing waters is still distinct, and it left scores of huge boulders in what used to be the campground. Jeff Ayres, the park’s superintendent, gave the Missourinet a tour of the virtually brand-new park.Īyres says there’s very little about the park that is recognizable from the park as it was in 2005, aside from the shut-ins themselves. Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park is finally completely re-opened, more than four years after it was devastated by more than a billion gallons of water from the breach of the upper Reservoir at Ameren UE’s Taum Sauk Hydroelectric plant. A view of the scour and 'boulder field' left behind from the breach, from the deck of the park's new Black River Center
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