Hiking Club Trail (Wildwood Loop)

Dogs Leashed

Features Birding · Fall Colors · Fishing · Lake · River/Creek · Swimming · Wildflowers

Stop at the park office to purchase your required daily ($7/day) or annual ($35/year) vehicle permit using self registration and pick up a park map. Office is not staffed on a regular basis. The park itself is open daily from 8 AM until 10 PM. There is usually a deer hunt in the park in November - the trail is open but wearing blaze orange is advised.

Going counter-clockwise from the southeast parking lot (not the one at the campground), this essentially level trail takes you through oak savanna, a mixture of grasslands and bur oaks, and scattered stands of hardwoods before turning south (near a junction with the Shooting Star State Trail) along the Upper Iowa River.

About a mile into the hike, you'll come to a junction with the trail to the campground. A short distance northwest on this trail is a stout bridge from which you can get a good view of the river and the lake.

Past the bridge, there's a bit more forest, then the trail parallels the lake shore, crosses a slough connected to the lake, and then heads back to the parking lot.