Muck Forty to Rymers

Below Muck Forty Hole the Jacks Fork runs five and a half miles1 to Rymers through a deep canyon2. Through this reach the river falls about 7 feet a mile3. The bluffs close in on the outsides of the bends and climb to nearly 300 feet4, old red cedars grow from their ledges5, and the gravel bars between them are wide6. For about three miles in the middle of the reach the river runs through the Jacks Fork Natural Area7, and at its center, on the outside of a hard bend, the right-hand bluff8 opens into the mouth of Jam Up Cave. The whole reach lies inside the national riverways9 (Chapter 10). Rymers, at the foot of the reach, is the first public landing below the natural area10 (Chapter 11).

The bluffs are Gasconade Dolomite near the water and the Roubidoux Formation above, and the contact between them shows as a change from sheer rock to ledges and overhangs11 (Chapter 1). The river gains little water here. In the dry week of August 2006 it carried about 38 cubic feet a second both near Jam Up Cave and near Rymer Spring, about what had come down past Blue Spring12 (Chapter 12).

The canyon holds some of the best mussel water left on the river. In 2017–19 timed searches of the riverbed found 94 live mussels near Muck Forty, 49 near Lost Hollow and 63 a little above Rymer Spring, though only 2 at Rymers itself, a site first searched in 198213. In 2023 searchers found four species alive both in the natural area near Angel Ridge and near Rymer Spring14 (Chapter 16).

Blue Spring to Rymers is the usual day float through this country, about six and a half miles15, which a local floater makes in about three and a half hours16 (Chapter 20).

The miles in the headings are counted from the junction of the prongs along the surveyed channel. Jam Up Cave is at about mile 12.8 and the Rymers landing at 16.517. Left and right are as you face downstream. Through most of the reach the river runs east, so river left is the north bank; near Rymers it turns north, and river left becomes the west bank.

Bend by bend

Hughes Hollow Hole and Daveys Hollow

Pool and hollow · left bank · about miles 11.2 to 11.3 · Plate A5

Below Muck Forty (Reach D) the river runs through Hughes Hollow Hole, known as a long, shallow pool18, and swings hard around the mouth of Daveys Hollow19, which comes in on the left on the outside of the bend. The hollow is short, draining less than half a square mile20, and is said to carry running water21. The federal maps spell it without an apostrophe22.

Round Blue Hole and the Holden Place

Pool and former farm · about mile 11.4 · Plate A5

The next pool, known as the Round Blue Hole, has a noisy spring at its upper end and a long bluff on the left streaked with red. A farm on the right above it was known as the Holden Place, and the pool was reached through it23.

The Jacks Fork Natural Area

Protected area · both banks · from about mile 11.5 for three miles

A little below Daveys Hollow the river enters the Jacks Fork Natural Area, 966 acres of Park Service land that the state added to its natural-area system on May 27, 1980, the same day as Barn Hollow24 upstream (Reach C; Chapter 11). Its upper end lies about four and a half river miles below the Highway 17 bridge and about two below Blue Spring, and it follows the river for about three miles25. It takes in the gravel bars, the dolomite cliffs and glades, the bottomland and upland forest, dry woodland and caves, and more than 450 native plants have been recorded in it, along with forty native fishes and four kinds of crayfish26 in the river (Chapter 16). The hills along this part of the river were logged like the rest of the country, but no logging tram reached them, and the timber went out by wagon to the mills at Birch Tree27 (Chapter 7). In 1981 the Park Service studied about 4,000 acres around Jam Up Cave as a possible wilderness and judged it unsuitable28 (Chapter 10).

Near the head of the natural area, where the river turns south, a natural arch stands on the left bank, hidden by trees from the water29. Behind the arch is a rock courtyard with two smaller openings into it, an alcove and, at the back, a cave passage about 140 feet long set with small formations, some of them broken, its floor trodden with footprints. It is also called Three Entrance Cave30. Its exact position has not been fixed31.

Bear Hollow, Bear Hollow Hole and Bear Hollow Bluff

Hollow, pool and bluff · right bank · about mile 12.1 · Plate A5

Bear Hollow comes in from the south, draining about a square mile and a half32. The pool at its mouth, known as Bear Hollow Hole, lies under a high, flat, gray bluff on the right, by one account the largest bluff on the river to this point. A small spring seeps from the bank below the pool, and about a mile and a half to the north a large marshy basin33 marks one of the many sinkholes of the upland.

High in Bear Hollow Bluff, above the bend, is the big entrance of Black Bluff Cave, about 25 feet high and 30 wide and plain from the river. A muddy slope leads back to a thick stand of columns and stalagmites, and the cave runs only about 120 feet in all. Little Black Bluff Cave34 is on the same stretch. The name Black Bluff was kept for the cave out of deference to whoever first named the cave, though the bluff’s own name is Bear Hollow Bluff35 (Chapter 13).

Fenninghauser Hole and Spring Hollow

Pool and hollow · left bank · about miles 12.1 to 12.3 · Plate A5

Fenninghauser Hole, just above the mouth of Spring Hollow36, begins a big bend, with a high bluff on the left and a spring on the right below the pool. A longtime angler and hunter of the middle river, who spells it Fennenhauser, remembers the place for camping, picnics and fishing37.

Spring Hollow, a small hollow of about a third of a square mile38, comes in on the left. It is said to be named for a spring that rises through its floor, and the pool at its mouth took the same name. Two more springs come out above Jam Up Cave, the first of them cascading over the rocks, a fine sight early in the year39.

Jam Up Bluff and Jam Up Cave

Bluff and natural tunnel · right bank · about mile 12.8 · Plate A5

Jam Up Bluff, by one account the high point along the Jacks Fork40, climbs nearly to the rim of the upland on the outside of a sharp bend. In its face is the mouth of Jam Up Cave, an arch about 80 feet high and 100 feet wide42 at its base, half buried in fallen rock43. The bluff rises about 250 feet above the water just upstream of the cave mouth and about 210 feet41 just below it. Over a very long time slabs falling from the roof have enlarged the opening upward in rings, so that the arch has the shape of a bandshell, and its crown stands about 125 feet above the water, by one account close under the rim44 of the canyon. The dark curve of the arch can be seen from far upstream. A slope of dolomite boulders46 falls from the entrance to the river, and the cave stream comes out on the left among the rocks45. A relatively fresh rockfall scar showed on the bluff face east of the cave in 200747 (Chapter 1).

Strictly speaking Jam Up is a natural tunnel48, a cave open at both ends (Chapter 13). Inside the arch a ridge of broken rock rises about 25 feet above the sloping floor, and behind it a hall runs back 350 to 400 feet among blocks the size of houses. Daylight reaches all the way in a dim, bluish50 half-light. The hall ends at a deep pool in a pit where the roof of a lower level fell in, walled on three sides by cliffs about 20 feet high, and a waterfall pours into it from the cave’s upper level, carrying Jam Up Creek in from the far side of the ridge. On the far side of the ridge the upper level opens to daylight through a collapsed sinkhole about 60 feet across, a window through which the creek can be seen threading among fallen blocks51, and through a smaller skylight52. In floods the creek carries logs, sticks and leaves through the tunnel and jams them in the outlet, and the rubble ridge then acts as a partial dam; water has stood 15 to 20 feet49 deep behind it. Cavers who surveyed the whole system in October 1980 measured 1,749 feet53 of passage.

An Eminence resident who has done park work remembers that a section of the roof fell in, by that account in the late 1990s54, and ceiling falls have happened in recent years55 (Chapter 13). A plan to raise mushrooms in the cave, about 1900, is said to have come to nothing, and a story is told of a horse that fell through the sinkhole56 into the cave and lived. On September 1, 1940, Leslie Hubricht, a collector of snails, took a tiny spring snail of a kind that lives in springs and cave streams, along with a freshwater limpet57, from the cave; the specimens are in the Field Museum in Chicago and the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology.

Field work by the Missouri botanist B. F. Bush brought the plants around Jam Up Bluff to national attention long before the park. The magnesium-rich dolomite, caps of Roubidoux sandstone on the heights and slopes cut to face every direction pack a great many habitats into a small space, and by 1960 the list of plants found near the bluff and the cave included showy and small white lady’s-slippers, grass-of-Parnassus, American barberry, harebell and northern bedstraw, plants of the north mixed with plants of the Appalachians. They were taken then for a relic colony58 left from the Ice Age (Chapter 16). Jam Up Bluff and Angel Ridge Bluff, a little downstream on the same side, are among the representative dolomite cliffs in the state’s classification of cliffs59 (Chapter 2).

Plants pressed at Jam Up are kept in herbaria as far apart as Columbia, St. Louis and San Diego60. Those collected in 1931 and 1932, in the University of Missouri’s herbarium, run from purple milkweed in the rocky woods and doll’s-eyes on the hillsides to bush clover on the glades, narrow-leaved bluets hanging from crevices in the bluff and leafy pondweed growing in the river itself61. Julian Steyermark took autumn coralroot, a small leafless orchid, from the wooded ravine of Jam-up Hollow on November 30, 193562. Bush, a storekeeper and botanist from Courtney in Jackson County, gathered hepatica on the rocky banks at Jam Up on April 17, 1936, when he was seventy-seven, ten months before his death63. In November 1960 a moss specialist collecting around the cave and along Jam Up Creek took red-stemmed feathermoss64, a moss of the northern forests, and in May 1971 false bugbane, one of the plants on the 1960 list, was pressed on Jam Up Bluff65.

How Jam Up got its name, and the “Jimjam Cave”66 that a floater heard, probably in 1934, are in Chapters 18 and 9.

Jam-Up Hole and Jam Up Creek

Pool and creek mouth · right bank · about mile 12.8 · Plate A5

The pool below the cave, known as Jam-Up Hole, is full of large rocks67 and about 8 feet deep at low water68. Jam Up Creek reaches the river on the right a short way below the portal, draining about 21 square miles. It heads in Mountain View and runs northeast toward the river, but below the town its water sinks into its bed and travels underground to Big Spring70 on the Current River (Chapter 12). Above the tunnel it runs through a canyon of its own, and its largest branch near the river, an unnamed hollow of about two and a half square miles, joins it from the west a little over half a mile above the mouth69.

The narrow ridge between the creek and the river, the ridge that the tunnel pierces, is called the Devil’s Backbone71, a name also given to the ridge between the river and Johnny Hollow on the right bank above Rymers72. Jam Up Creek probably once ran north toward the river on the far side of this ridge while the river cut south toward it from the other side. The creek’s bed broke through into a cave passage already dissolved in the rock, the creek followed the passage to the river, and its old valley below the break was left without a stream. That valley is taken to be Lost Hollow73, which reaches the river two miles downstream (below). Piracy of this kind, through a cave, is very rare74 (Chapter 13).

A little downstream of the cave an immense gravel bar has built up on the inside of the bend, long used as a camp75 (Chapter 20).

Red Bluff and Bearny Hollow

Bluff, cave and hollow · left bank · about miles 13.3 to 13.4 · Plate A5

About half a mile below Jam Up76 the left bank rises into Red Bluff, a cliff about 230 feet high78 streaked with red from iron oxide in the clay, with a good pool77 below it. In its face, visible from the river through the trees, is Red Bluff Cave, a dry entrance about 10 feet wide and 20 high that narrows to a low crawl within 40 feet. Pockets in the rock near its mouth hold what look like pack rats’ nests79.

A short way downstream a branch of about half a square mile80 comes in on the left, known as Bearny Hollow81. That angler calls it the “Spring hole”82 (Chapter 18).

Blowing Spring Hole, Sugartree Bottom and Boulder Chute

Pool, bottom and chute · about miles 13.8 to 14.3 · Plate A5

Blowing Spring Hole, about 5 feet deep at low water83, is known by a small, noisy spring. Below it, on the left, lies Sugartree Bottom, said to be named for the large sugar maples that once grew there. The river sweeps past a high cut bank of clay on the left into Boulder Chute, a long, narrow, rough run lined with large rocks84. Up on the north side, a pond on the upland is lettered Gilmore Pond85.

To the right the narrow ridge called Angel Ridge separates the river from Lost Hollow86. Its river face is Angel Ridge Bluff87 (Chapter 2).

Lost Hollow, Fly Blow Hollow and Indian Field

Hollow, former ford and homesite · both banks · about mile 14.9 · Plate A5

Lost Hollow comes in from the south at a sharp bend, draining about five square miles. Its lower course is taken to be the abandoned valley of Jam Up Creek, and with no large stream left to deepen it, the valley floor has stayed close to the grade it had when the creek was captured, while the creek above the point of capture has cut perhaps 20 feet lower. Near its mouth the hollow shows the work of two streams cutting against each other89, the old creek and a tributary from the south. Fly Blow Hollow, a short side valley of a little over half a square mile88, joins it from the west a little above the mouth and gives its name to one of the short faults90 mapped across the upper river (Chapter 1). That angler calls the creek “Flyblow” and says it runs all year.

Water still comes out of Lost Hollow. Around 1980 a good stream ran from it, cold enough to tell that a large spring was near, several feet deep in places behind beaver dams. Near its mouth three large springs come up, one through the floor on the west side of the creek and two through the rocks on the east side, and one of them once had a water pipe running from it; that angler knows a “Pipe spring” there. The springs rise beside the Old Simms Place, by one account one of the more beautiful homesites along the river, long since grown up in brush92. The ridge to the east, which the federal maps call Jenny Ridge93, is the “Simms track”91 to the same angler.

The old road from Birch Tree to Summersville came down Lost Hollow from Fly Blow Hollow and crossed the river at its mouth at McIntire Ford94, lettered McIntyre Ford95 on the 1948 topographic map. On the left above the ford is the Indian Field, said to be one of many old Indian campgrounds96 along the river (Chapter 3).

Swirl Hole and the Blue Hole

Pools · about miles 14.9 to 15.0 · Plate A5

At the mouth of Lost Hollow is Swirl Hole, a deep pool, and immediately below it the Blue Hole, by one account one of the deepest holes97 on the river. At low water Swirl Hole is about 5 feet deep and the Blue Hole about 898. This is a second Blue Hole99 on the upper Jacks Fork, distinct from the one in Reach C (Chapter 18). A primitive campsite called Blue Hole was on the park’s list in 1981, between Baptizing Hole and Flat Rock100.

Meeting House Cave

Cave and pool · left bank · about mile 15.5

The next pool, known as Meeting House Cave Hole, lies under a long bluff on the left. Meeting House Cave opens in the bluff with one of the largest entrances on the river, and around 1980 a large bur oak101 grew in its mouth. Its main passage starts big, pinches down quickly and gives only about 220 feet102 of passage. That angler calls it the “Church house cave.” The legend that both sides used it during the Civil War103, and what the name may mean, are in Chapter 13. Gnarled red cedars grow from the bluff along the pool, said to be among the oldest trees in the Ozarks because they were of no use as timber and hard to reach104.

Bill Hollow, Rock Hollow, Flat Rock Hollow and Woodriff Hole

Hollows and pool · about miles 15.6 to 15.8 · Plate A5

Jenny Ridge separates Lost Hollow from Bill Hollow105 on the south side of the river. Bill Hollow comes in on the right, draining about three square miles106. Rock Hollow107, lettered on the 1948 topographic map, comes in on the left a little below, and Flat Rock Hollow enters on the left a little beyond. Flat Rock Hollow drains about five square miles108 of the upland to the north, more than any other side stream of the reach except Jam Up Creek. It holds water in several places and by one account runs only in wet weather109. Woodriff Hole, by one account a favorite swimming hole110, lies on this stretch. The park has kept a primitive camping area called Flat Rock on this stretch since at least 1981111.

The club cabins

Former club grounds · left bank · about mile 16.0

Below Flat Rock Hollow the river runs through a rough divided chute, over several rocks and around a couple of turns112, past the ground of the Shannon County Hunting and Fishing Club. Springfield men incorporated the club in 1912 and built ten cabins here on the west bank114 near Ebb and Flow Spring113 (Chapters 9 and 10). In October 1934 a botanist gathering plants on the river banks and bottoms here and on the bluff top to the south labeled them by “Ebb-and-Flow Camp” near Birch Tree115, probably the club’s camp. Several of the cabins were still standing, in poor repair, around 1980116 (Chapter 9).

Ebb and Flow Spring and Rymer Spring

Spring · left bank · about mile 16.2 · Plate A5

About three-tenths of a mile above the Rymers landing, on the left117, is the spring that pulses, known both as Ebb and Flow Spring and as Rymer Spring; the two names appear to belong to one spring118. Most of its water comes up in a round basin above the level of the river, and some enters through the rocks at the river’s edge119, with a short spring branch120 to the river. How such springs work is taken up in Chapter 12.

A road built in 1916 from Birch Tree to the Ebb and Flow Spring came down to the river along the Devil’s Backbone, the ridge between the river and Johnny Hollow122, ran past the later site of Rymer’s ranch and crossed the river to the club121. In April 2007, after rain, cavers floating toward Rymers noticed a spring branch on the left above the landing with water distinctly blue, and took it for the way to Rymer Spring123.

The spring drew naturalists early. Julian Steyermark collected capillary beak-rush on the moist, shaded bluffs near it on July 16, 1932124, and Leslie Hubricht took a bladder snail from the spring the next day125. Fish taken at the spring in 1939 and kept at the Field Museum include hornyhead chubs, banded darters, northern studfish and rock bass126, and the museum also holds spothanded crayfish taken there on August 26, 1939127 (Reach D).

Rough Hollow

Hollow · left bank · about mile 16.3 · Plate A5

Rough Hollow comes in on the left a little above the Rymers landing, on the opposite bank, draining a little over a square mile128. In April 2007 cavers paddled up it as far as they could before the brush closed in129. That angler calls it “Ebb n flow.”

Rymers

Landing and backcountry campground · right bank · mile 16.5 · Plate A5

Rymers is a Park Service landing and backcountry campground130 on the right bank, at the end of a county road from Highway M131 (Chapter 11). It takes its name from Rymer’s Rustic Ranch, a resort of the 1920s and 1930s132 (Chapter 9), and the name has been written Rymer, Rhymer and Rymer’s133 (Chapter 18). A cable is said to have run from the ranch to the spring, carrying water in a bucket134. The water past the old ranch was known as the Rymers Ranch Stretch, with a long bluff on its right135.

Places not yet placed

The Turnip Patch, Hickory Flat Hollow and Birch Prairie. The Turnip Patch is lettered on the right bank below Red Bluff on a river map of 1980, and Hickory Flat Hollow and Birch Prairie on the upland south of the river in the Jam Up Creek country136. None has been fixed on the ground.

The blow-hole of the 1930s. A cold-air blow-hole a floater was shown, probably in 1934, somewhere above Jam Up137 has not been found since (Chapter 13).

On to Reach F

Below Rymers the river bends northeast past Johnny Hollow toward Bunker Hill138, the start of Reach F and Plate A7. Rules for the river are in Part Six.