A local grassroots organization has been busy blazing its own trails at the Lake of the Ozarks. The founders of Magic Dragon Trails (MDT) believe they have an opportunity to showcase the area’s beautiful and rugged Ozark terrain and share it with local community members and visitors near and far.

Named after the serpentine shape of the Lake of the Ozarks, Magic Dragon Trails began making its mark in 2022. That’s when a team of volunteers developed and opened the Magic Dragon Bicycle Skills Park and an additional half mile of singletrack trail adjacent to the Tri-County YMCA in Osage Beach. But this could be just the beginning.

MDT has been working with Progressive Trail Design and Laneshift, the same development teams that designed the trail infrastructure in and around Bentonville and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Together, the groups are assembling a master plan that would create over 75 miles of interconnecting trails throughout the area, connecting all the communities at the Lake of the Ozarks, from Osage Beach to Ha Ha Tonka State Park, and then from Versailles to Eldon. Once in Eldon, the MDT system would connect with the Rock Island Trail State Park, which, if completed, would be an additional 144 miles of rail-trail in Missouri and connect to the 240-mile Katy Trail State Park. This would essentially create the largest rail-trail development in the world.

Magic Dragon Trails Bike Skills Park. (Magic Dragon Trails.)

“When you consider that Northwest Arkansas’ trails bring in about 120,000 out-of-state visitors each year and those cyclists contribute $27 million annually to the local communities, we can easily be doing the same here at the Lake of the Ozarks,” says Amy Hernandez, director of project development for Branches for the Lake, the fundraising arm of MDT. “We share the same rugged Ozark terrain and have a dedicated cycling community, so it would be a shame not to share our beautiful area with more visitors while simultaneously boosting our local economies and improving the overall health of our communities.”

In the short term, MDT continues to build community among cyclists, runners, and hikers by hosting monthly group mountain bike and road bike rides, trail runs, and hikes at various locations around the Lake of the Ozarks. These get-togethers are free and open to the public. For anyone who would like to learn to cycle or improve their bike-handling skills, MDT also organizes multiple cycling skills camps for all ages at the Magic Dragon Trails Bike Park. 

For more information, go here.

Author: Kyle Wayne Stewart is a frequent contributor to Terrain.

Top image: Courtesy of Magic Dragon Trails.