Wabash Trace Trail / Council Bluffs to Dumfries

Section Hiking the Wabash Trace Trail | Council Bluffs to Dumfries, IA | April 2022

We have been slowly chipping away at the Wabash Trace Trail for over a year now, and at the beginning of April had around 20 miles left to accomplish. Three quarters of that is the Southern end of the trail, but about 5.5 miles were back at the beginning of the trail, starting in Council Bluffs. Even though this was the closest trailhead for us to drive to, we kept putting it off because it was so long (over 11 miles round trip), and we expected it to be much busier with it being so close to the city. But at the beginning of April, we knew it was time to “get it over with” — the weather will start warming up soon, there will be even more people using the trail, and we want to “finish” the trail on the Iowa/Missouri border and not in Council Bluffs.

And so we drove over as early as we could on a Saturday morning to begin our hike. This also happened to be Curtis’ birthday, which makes this his second birthday in a row that we’ve spent hiking the Wabash Trace Trail! There is a decent sized parking lot off of Wabash Ave in Council Bluffs, and the trail begins to the South across Omaha Bridge Road. Though we did note that bike paths clearly continued North into Council Bluffs, and further research showed that it wouldn’t be too hard to walk to BOB the Bridge, all of which are part of the National American Discovery Trail…but one trail at a time.

The main reason that we hadn’t been looking forward to this section (besides it being busier) is that much of it follows roads that see a moderate amount of traffic, and the trail goes behind many different properties, so it feels like a long walk through the suburbs of Council Bluffs. While part of the trail was exactly how we expected it to be, it really wasn’t too busy when we started in the morning and after passing the halfway point to Dumfries it became much more rural and quiet as the trail peeled away from the roads.

Because we were closer to the city, we didn’t see as much wildlife as we’ve been seeing on sections further South. However, one interesting part about this section was that it actually had a noticeable elevation gain — not that we could tell while walking, but it is obvious on our AllTrails recording. The trail became more scenic as we entered into the Loess Hills, and the scenery reminded us of our first day walking on the Wabash Trace trail last year. We even almost had a few overlooks!

We made it to the bridge where we had left off a year ago, then turned around and walked back. The day had started to warm up, so we took our time walking back and even sat and rested on a bridge for a while for Charlotte’s sake. It took us about 4 hours to walk the 11.5 miles, and by the end we were tired but so glad to have this section behind us. While walking, we noted places in neighborhoods where we likely could have parked to break up this section further, but again we’re glad we were able to knock it all out in one go.