Wabash Trace Trail / Silver City to Gaston Ave

Section Hiking the Wabash Trace Trail | Silver City, IA to Gaston Ave | April 2021

Hiking on the Wabash Trace Trail has become something I’m eagerly looking forward to each week. I love making slow progress and enjoying small sections at a time. I love that the three of us can do it together, going at our own pace, and we hardly ever see anyone else around. Between the quiet bike trails and driving to the different trailheads in small towns, it’s a very low-stress and laid back activity for our weekends. And since we’ve begun hiking it at the beginning of spring, the trail is changing each time we return — every time it looks a little greener, and there are more flowers popping up.

Today’s section was a shorter one, only 3 miles from the trailhead in Silver City to Gaston Ave. The towns are a bit more spread out after Silver City and we didn’t want to push Charlotte too far since it was warming up. When we came to Gaston Ave, we saw there was a spot where we could park next time and continue on to US-34 from there, so we didn’t see a problem with ending in sort of a weird spot.

As it turned out, Charlotte was very determined to keep up a quick pace the entire way, so we got more of a workout than we had bargained for. She also enjoyed some small nibbles from our homemade trail mix — she’s a big fan of our honey roasted peanuts.

Altogether, today’s stretch was just over 6 miles long. You can check out our trail recording here if you’re interested. 11 miles of the Wabash Trace Trail down, around 50 to go!