Rocky Falls, Missouri

Rocky Falls is a forty-foot-high cascade in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, a unit of the National Park Service. It's also a great example of a "shut-in," a distinctive feature of the Ozarks. The hill to the left of the falls is made of 1.5-billion-year-old rhyolite, which is pretty hard. The water has found a crack in the rhyolite to flow through. At the bottom of the falls, Rocky Creek has carved out a pool in the softer rock below. These pools make great swimming holes in summer, where you can frolic with the fishies, water snakes, and cottonmouths. March 2010.