Waubonsie State Park is stashed away in the far southwest corner of Iowa. The park appears on Iowa travel websites and outdoor blogs as a top fall color hike. So with leaves past their prime in Central Iowa, I set out with my better half to hike Waubonsie State Park in late October.

Just miles from the Missouri and Nebraska borders, Waubonsie looms above the Missouri River flood plain in Iowa’s Loess Hills. Hikers target seven miles of trails that sample the Loess Hills’ unique mix of steep slopes, forested hills, and pockets of prairie.

the hike

Armed with a free trail map, we began a leisurely hike at the Overlook Trail. We soon joined the Sunset Ridge Trail for the park’s longest loop hike. 

This is a scenic bluff which peers down on the farms of the Missouri River floodplain. (No river views). The postcard shot of Waubsonsie State Park appears relatively early on the Sunset Ridge Trail.

The Sunset Ridge Trail then leaves the overlooks behind as it veers east into the woods. Here the trail provides a mile or two of moderate ascents and descents before a healthy climb up a tall grass prairie to a hilltop picnic area. The views were decent in late October, but we mistimed the fall colors–the leaves must have dropped early in southwest Iowa with early October rainstorms and cold temperatures. 

After lunch, we returned to the center of the park along a roadside trail (Mincer Trail) and tackled two overlapping out-and-back trails on the north end of the park. The Valley Trail offers a nice wooded loop hike down and back up a steep ravine within the interior of the park. Toward the top of the loop, we veered right at the Y-junction to take the Bridge Trail back down another hillside. The Bridge Trail dead ends at private property (with no bridge view), requiring hikers to double back up the Bridge Trail with a sustained uphill climb until you rejoin the combined Valley/Bridge trail for the final ascent back to the Overlook, where we began the hike.

Trail Review:

The Waubonsie State Park trail ranks as an above average Iowa hike.

This hike is a nice introduction to the Loess Hills for newcomers–and for me was a nice return trip to the Loess Hills, twenty years after I biked them with my Dad for a conservation fund-raiser. If we lived in Omaha or (God help us) Nebraska, this would be our regular hike. For Des Moines area hikers, however, this 7 mile hike may not be worth a 2.5 to 3 hour drive each way. We’re glad we did it once–but won’t hurry back. Having lived in Central, Northern, and Eastern Iowa, however, it was good to have ventured southwest to a part of the state I’ve barely visited over the years.