Took Maple Springs fire road most of the way up. If you head to Maple Springs, do not start your hike at the visitors center unless you want a 24 mile hike. Find someone with a high clearance vehicle (seriously, do not to this in a sedan) and go 4 miles up the paved road past the fire station, and then another 4 miles up the dirt road until you get to a large turnout with a gate. This will make the trek around 9.5 miles. There's also a set of radio towers about 1.5 miles further up the dirt road that you could *probably* park at to make the hike even shorter.

As you go up the road, you'll see a smaller trail off to the left. If you take that up and back, you can knock off another mile of the trek. We ended up doing 8 miles that day.

It's a boring fire road, but it's easy with only 1500 if elevation gain from this route. It is completely exposed and you'll be eating the dust of the many off road vehicles that go by, but again, it's much less strenuous than your other routes.  We went mid-day, in July and it was hot, but there was a nice breeze to get us through.

We took Chapman to Joplin last year and it as 5000 ft. over 15 miles, and although it was pretty, we preferred this boring route. Also, the parking for the TH for Chapman to Joplin is private property and you may get towed or a ticket.