March 15, 2022
My second hike in Iowa was much more pleasing than the first. The scenery was much nicer.
Brandy joined Ash and I for a short hike at the Coralville Dam Recreation Area.
The Trail
I looked at AllTrails and found the Squire Shore, Weasel Run, Mushroom Forest Trail, a moderate 5 mile trail with 364 feet of elevation gain.
Sounded like a good hike to me but since this was Brandy’s first hike in a while, we decided to just try that first loop to the east.
Sunday Hike
We woke up nice and early Sunday morning to head out to the trail before it got too hot. It had been creeping into the 90s last week so we wanted to beat that heat, though the forecast only called for a 75-ish degree day.
We packed up our packs and headed out, getting to the trailhead around 8:30 or so. I turned on the navigation on AllTrails, we approached the trailhead and grabbed a dog waste bag from the dispenser… then almost immediately had to use it.
At the first fork in the path, we immediately deviated from the prescribed trail. The map indicated we should go right but we went left to avoid a handful of people already heading that way, one of which had a dog. Best to avoid issues with Ash and just go the other way.
The fork to the left isn’t even part of the hike as set by AllTrails. The first thing we did was decide to just wing this hike. I got the notification that we were off trail and ignored it for the rest of the walk.
We were deep in a lush, green wood, much more green than the first hike I took in Iowa. It was definitely the type of landscape that I love being in while hiking. While we weren’t too terribly far from civilization, we weren’t walking right behind warehouses or feet from the highway. It was a true nature hike. There was so much green. It was definitely more picturesque than the Woodpecker East Loop trail.
The path headed down a fairly steep decline toward Coralville Lake, the man-made lake created by Coralville Dam. As we approached, we came across one of my favorite features to come across on a hike: a bridge!
I don’t know why I’m so fascinated with bridges but every time I see one, I get so giddy.
Anyway, we crossed that bridge when we got to it, and continued down toward the shore. As we approached, we turned right and headed east along the shore of the lake. We were high up on a bluff looking down onto the shore with trees between us and the lake, until we came across a clearing with an outcropping and a nice overlook.
Across the lake was the back yard of a massive home, likely a multi-million dollar house set right on the lake. Google satellite images show a private marina just down the yard from the back door of the house.
We continued on our way up the shore heading back uphill until we came across a mysterious structure, just parked in the middle of the woods.
It didn’t really seem to serve much of a purpose, except maybe freaking someone out.
We passed the stack of sticks by and continued our way back toward the trailhead. We eventually passed by the same people we tried to avoid as the beginning of our hike, a couple of them were birdwatching. Not too long after we passed them, we found ourselves back at the trailhead, about 45 minutes after we headed off.
After the Hike
We got into the car and decided to explore a little more of the area. We drove over the Coralville Dam and to the closed visitor’s center (they’re dealing with roof damage) and down the road a bit more before turning around and heading back over the dam… which is when I remembered I hadn’t stopped the navigation on AllTrails. I pulled my phone out and saw that it had tracked a 6 mile “hike” where we were driving. As I didn’t want to cheat that extra four and a half or so miles, I deleted the activity from my AllTrails.
Conclusion
For it being Brandy’s first hike in Iowa and considering how much we had to do this weekend, it was a pretty amazing hike. I keep coming across a bunch of stuff I want to explore in the state, but they’re by and large half-day adventures, if not whole-day. With a garage sale coming up on the 28th, we have a few things to take care of that will prevent us from getting too far away from home, but we are planning a brief return to Ottumwa for the holiday weekend, then there’ll be nothing stopping us from getting out to the things we love to do.
In the meantime, Brandy has pledged to hike both Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend (the 21st and 22nd); again, they’ll have to be close-by hikes but I’ll be ecstatic if we can get out both days this weekend.
Check out the pictures I took on this hike below.
I know I close out with the same line just about every time these days, but I truly mean it. Thank you so much for stopping by. I honestly and truly appreciate you.
Until next time!
-Phil
