IOU Hiking at Ledges State Park...

By, Sara Hollerich

Ledges is a great little State Park near Boone, Iowa. It is a rather unique area in the state with sandstone bluffs rising about 100 feet. It offers a lot hiking opportunities so we decided to head up there and check out the park. I had been there quite a few times in the past and have gone on several of the trails.

We started our hike on the top of one of the bluffs and walked along the ridge and down into the valley. There are a lot of stairs to climb in the park and it makes for a great workout. It was nice to have Ken along because he knew a lot of the bird species in the park. He was constantly pointing out birds here and there. One of the most memorable moments was them we were practically face to face with a ruby crowned kinglet. They are very small birds and evidently this one was pretty curious and not that afraid of us. It let us get pretty close before it flew away.

Our hike took us through most of the park. A couple of other spots I thought were pretty interesting included the stone shelter they took apart, numbering all of the stones, and put it back up out of the floodplain exactly the way it was built before. There is also a pole in the lower parking lot. The pole has markers on it for each of the floods so you can see where the waterline was during the 1993 flood and some other floods. It is pretty amazing to see. It was a nice and sunny day for a hike and a great day to get out and enjoy ourselves.