Trail conditions - Booneville to Rocheport

We rode from Sedalia to Rocheport today, and here's an update on the two closures past Booneville.

Just past Booneville over the bridge (highway 40), the trail is closed and the sign says there is no detour. We didn't want to ride on 40 because it's pretty busy, so we took 87 west just a short bit to pick up the trail again. Just down the trail it was blocked saying it was closed because a culvert was out. But just as we were turning around a friendly worker drove up and told us he'd open the gate for us and it is passable. He said it's not officially open yet but you can get through. We found that there was just some soft dirt but totally passable now.

The other detour is a few miles past Pearsons, just a few miles outside of Rocheport. That one is still closed for a few miles. A sign says to take the road on the right of the trail over to highway 40, but the road was flooded. We had to go back about 3 miles to Pearsons. We still wanted to avoid 40 so we turned North (away from 40) on gravel road 467 for maybe half a mile, then right on 442 (also gravel) which took us all the way into Rocheport. The gravel roads had some hills, but there's basically no traffic which was what we were looking for. So whether you want to take 40 or the gravel roads like we did, you need to detour at Pearsons because the detour where the trail is closed is flooded.

We rode this second detour a few miles east out of Boonville a week ago, and didn't find route 40 too bad - but we are confident on the road (although we'd much rather be on the trail). We got onto 40 with no problem - it ran right alongside the trail. Perhaps the flooding is recent?

If you do get onto 40, the important thing is to take the right turn onto route 240 off 40, and then ride the mile or so into Rocheport where you can rejoin the trail eastwards. 240 was almost deserted.

I think the first detour described by jlouder is the one just coming out of Boonville. We were advised to come over the Boonville Bridge on 40 and ride about 2.5 miles before the turn off left on 5 and the ride about a mile to the New Franklin trailhead where you can rejoin the trail. That worked for us.

It sounds though as if the Boonville trailhead was where jlouder was helped by a 'friendly worker' and got on to the trail. We went to this trailhead by mistake and didn't want to take a chance - we could see heavy construction plant ahead - so we went to New Franklin.

Sedalia: we got lost coming from the Sedalia trailhead. Although there seem to be markings painted on the country road you do need to be careful not to turn right into the residential area just after you set off. That added a few miles to a hot 40-mile day!

Final tip: we loved how helpful locals are along the trail, but some of them don't know about closures (why should they?) and may direct you, in all good faith, to a closed route or trailhead.