The Missouri "Trailogy" Series - Episode #1 - Chubb Trail near Eureka, MO

 Chubb Trail, near Eureka, MO boasts a wide variety of terrain. It's a point-to-point 7.5+ trail that stretches between Lone Elk County Park and West Tyson County Park in St. Louis County. It's convenient to run because it has plenty of parking at either end, and if you don't feel up to making the complete round trip for 15.5 miles, you could always call for a ride from either parking lot ;-) It's only a 10 minute drive from my house - so that's a big plus for me. It offers a some nice views as you run along the Meramec River and the surrounding river valley.

Cell phone coverage is intermittent along the trail, but for the most part, you could get a call out if you needed to. Each end of the trail features more hilly & technical terrain - especially the West Tyson side. The middle few miles of the trail are quite flat, single track, on soft river bottom dirt (and mud). This is a section of the trail that the faster runners can REALLY open it up! This is a look at the elevation profile of the course, which is mirrored because I ran 2 out-and-backs during the recorded run:

Chub Trail also plays host to my local ultra club, St. Louis Ultrarunner's Group, famous "Double Chubb 50k", which is part of the Eastern Missouri Ultra Series Championships.

Let's get started from the Lone Elk County Park trail head: 

Making my way down to the river flats out of Lone Elk County Park:

Cruising the flats along the river - NICE running here - nothing technical, no hills:

Great views along the river as I make my way from Lone Elk to West Tyson:

It can flood BIG TIME down near the river, so there's an alternate route to help you out along higher ground - but if it's the typical spring flood, it doesn't offer enough relief and the trail will be closed. Fortunately, it's been VERY dry in STL lately, so I could take the more scenic, lower river route - still found some mud down there, though!:

Finally made my way out of the flats, and you can see the rolling hills in the back ground that make up the walls of the Meramec River valley - entering West Tyson County park:

A rewarding view as you make your way up and out of the river valley, "The Overlook":

As you head in to West Tyson County Park - get ready to CLIMB:

"The Picnic Table" is the high-point of the run, but not quite all the way to the Chubb Shelter side of the trail - there is some rolling, very technical terrain to cover for a couple of miles before you reach the turn-around:

FINALLY, 7.25 miles across - but your hit with the 1/2 mile Chinkapin trail, a little horseshoe shaped bugger that makes you climb a steep 1/4 mile up and then right back down to the turn-around. At the turn there is a nice set-up of washrooms and water supply:

Now, simply turn around and run back! For the Double Chubb 50k, do it TWICE. It's a great trail with a variety to keep any runner interested, well trained, and well entertained. If you're ever visiting the STL area and you have a spare hour or two, I highly encourage you to bring out your trail trainers and have a go at Chubb - you'll be glad you did!