Art and Hiking: The Laumeier Sculpture Trail.

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I live trails, and I love sculpture. The Laumeier Sculpture trail in St, Louis, Missouri gives us the rare opportunity to enjoy them both at the same time. A combination of deeply wooded unpaved trails and paved open prairie walkways, the park offers both traditional and starkly modern sculpture in a lush pastoral setting. 

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The nature trails offer you a standard outdoor path with the surprise of a thought-provoking sculpture behind every corner. 

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A sculpture or a Dalek? Don’t exterminate your chance to find out. I do like how many of the sculptures not only were tactile but looking, touching and in a couple cases, climbing was encouraged. 
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A functional yet eclectic covered bridge.
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Looking like a tree stump this sculpture fit right into the deep woods setting. 

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Keeping up with the theme of tactile explorable art, these wooden forts would be a child’s dream play area. 

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Climbing and exploring were fully encouraged in this sculpture exhibit.
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All told, there are about three miles of trails.

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The trails were creatively designed to have a lot of curves so that the path would hide many of the sculptures from view until you came right up to them. This provided a nice element of surprise.

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The sculptures are rotated relatively often, so you always have to keep your eye out for something new. 

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These sculptures were fun to ride even for the bigger (much bigger) kids like me.

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This piece was over thirty feet tall.

The sculpture park is located in the western Saint Louis suburbs. There is no admission charge. 

Pros: Very unique trails with enjoyable art to take your mind off how far you walk. Both wooded and open field trails, lovely sculpture many of which you can touch (which is rare for many sculpture parks). A pleasant walk not too long or short. 

 

Cons: The trails are hilly, especially the wooded portions. The park is very popular with locals, so you almost always have a lot of people sharing trails. (a bit problematic on the wooded trails which are fairly narrow)

 

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