Bring Your Group

Bus Tour:

For a group arriving on its own bus, our guide can step aboard to describe the Reserve's history, what's in bloom, the restoration work, the tallgrass prairie, wildlife and wetlands. t is important that the bus has a microphone.

Additional stops can be made for a fee to visit the Bascom House, a restored 1879 home, and the adjoining 5-acre Whitmire Wildflower Garden for an additional 30 minutes. There are benches on the lawn of the Bascom House and in the wildflower garden for those who want to relax while others are walking around.

Shaw Explorer:

Through a generous donation, the Nature Reserve has a new wagon for guided tours! The new wagon, known as the Shaw Explorer, includes improved safety and accessibility features. Just like a bus tour, the Shaw Explorer tour can be customized for your group and additional stops can be made for a fee.

Walking Tour:

A guide will narrate while you walk on some of our 17 miles of hiking trails. You can choose to hear information on our ecology, native plant landscaping, or our history.

Cost (admission and tour combined):

• $100: one-hour walk-on coach tour on of the three-mile Loop Road
• $50: per additional stop at either the Bascom House or Whitmire Wildflower Garden for a thirty-minute walking tour
• $50: thirty-minute walking tour about our ecology, native landscaping or history

IMPORTANT: If a group is to have a guide, it is absolutely necessary to make a reservation at least two weeks ahead of time!

Reservations:
(314) 577-0850

Shaw Nature Reserve is located off I-44, about 35 miles west of the Arch in downtown St. Louis. We are on I-44, Exit 253, Gray Summit. This is two exits west of Six Flags (Allenton/Eureka).

There are numerous side trips in the area of the Reserve that can be combined to your tour: Purina Farms, restaurants in Washington, Labadie, and Pacific, LaBarque Creek natural areas, antique shops in Washington and Eureka, wineries north of the Missouri River along Highway 94, the Black Madonna Shrine in Eureka, and Meramec State Park and Meramec Caverns near Sullivan.