A 200-mile ribbon of ice-age silt makes this Iowa road one of Earth’s rarest drives

It’s 220 miles of dirt that blew in

You can drive the length of western Iowa and never realize the hills beside you exist nowhere else in the country. The Loess Hills run about 200 miles along Iowa’s border with the Missouri River valley, built entirely from fine silt that the wind stacked up during the last ice age.


— wp:paragraph {"placeholder":"Enter slide content here… "} –> Deposits reach 200 feet deep in spots.

The only other place on the planet with anything like it is China. A national scenic byway threads through the whole thing, and most of it stays empty.

The main route runs 220 paved miles to Missouri

The byway starts in Akron up in Plymouth County and runs south to the Missouri border. All 220 miles of the main route are paved, so you don’t need anything special to drive it.

If you want to wander, 185 miles of side loops branch off into gravel roads and even interstate highways. The whole route runs close to Interstate 29, so you can hop on and off easily from Interstates 29 and 80.

Scenic overlooks with parking and interpretive signs sit along the way, and in 1992, Scenic America named it one of the nation’s 10 most outstanding scenic byways.

Watch 200 bison graze Iowa’s biggest prairie

Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve sits near Sioux City and covers close to 4,000 acres. It holds the largest remaining stretch of native prairie left in Iowa.

The Nature Conservancy brought bison back here in 2008 to help keep the grassland healthy, and the herd has grown to about 200 animals.

You can spot them grazing on the rolling hills, especially during summer months. The preserve also has about 10 miles of hiking trails that connect to neighboring preserves if you want to stretch the day.

Climb a 45-foot tower and count 13,000 raptors

Hitchcock Nature Center covers more than 1,200 acres in Honey Creek, near Council Bluffs.

A 45-foot observation tower sits on top of a 250-foot hill and gives you a full 360-degree sweep of the Missouri River Valley.

From September through mid-December, volunteers count an average of 13,000 migrating raptors passing through each year.

It ranks among the top 25 HawkWatch sites in North America and one of the top five in the country for migrating bald eagles.

More than 10 miles of trails range from easy ridgeline walks to steep climbs.

Kids meet live raptors at Dorothy Pecaut

The Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center sits inside Stone State Park in Sioux City.

The 14,000-square-foot building holds interactive exhibits on the geology, plants and animals of the Loess Hills, plus live fish, reptiles and raptors.

Outside, the Discovery Forest Nature Playscape gives kids a tree fort, logs to climb and a wading area. Several miles of trails start at the center and connect to another 10 miles inside Stone State Park.

The center opened in 1995 and marked its 30th anniversary in 2025.

DeSoto offers a glimpse into 250,000 artifacts

DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge sprawls across 8,365 acres along the Missouri River near Missouri Valley. Inside the visitor center, you walk through nearly 250,000 artifacts pulled from the Steamboat Bertrand.

The boat sank on April 1, 1865, after hitting a submerged log on its way to the Montana gold fields. It sat buried under about 30 feet of mud for over a century until treasure hunters found it in 1968.

The recovered cargo includes clothing, tools, food and household goods, all from the Civil War era. It is the largest intact collection of everyday artifacts from that period in the country.

Prickly pear cactus grows on Iowa ridgetops

More than half of Iowa’s remaining native prairies cling to the Loess Hills.

The dry ridgetops support plants you would expect out on the Great Plains, including yucca and prickly pear cactus. A fern called the prairie moonwort, discovered in 1984, may grow only in these hills and nowhere else.

Prairie rattlesnakes, plains spadefoot toads and Great Plains skink lizards all live here at the far edge of their range.

Fire suppression since European settlement let red cedar trees invade the grasslands, so land managers now run controlled burns to protect what is left.

People walked these hills 12,000 years ago

Humans first came to the Loess Hills as early as 12,000 years ago.

Between roughly 900 and 1300 AD, the Glenwood culture built hundreds of earth lodges across the hills. Stone tools, spear points, pottery and burial sites have turned up throughout the region.

Lewis and Clark passed through western Iowa in 1804 and left some of the earliest written descriptions of the landscape.

Council Bluffs takes its name from the expedition’s first formal meeting with Native Americans nearby, a detail that still marks the city today.

Hike a former Mormon village with no campgrounds

Preparation Canyon State Park covers 344 acres of sharp ridges, streams and springs.

The park sits on the site of a former Mormon village called Preparation, and it remains one of the most primitive and quiet parks in the state. No modern campgrounds, just backcountry hiking.

The surrounding Loess Hills State Forest spans 11,484 acres across four units in Harrison and Monona counties, with trails for hiking, hunting, cross-country skiing and nature study.

A scenic overlook on the north edge of the Preparation Canyon unit gives you a wide view of the forest and Missouri River bottomlands.

Some bluffs rise 350 feet straight off the floodplain

Murray Hill in Harrison County sits among the highest points in the Loess Hills.

Some hills in this area rise more than 350 feet above the Missouri River floodplain, creating a sharp wall of bluffs that jumps up from flat bottomland.

On clear days, you can see across the river into Nebraska from several overlooks. Twenty-five scenic overlooks along the byway each have interpretive signs on the geology and ecology of the hills.

In fall, golden prairie grasses and shifting colors move across the forested hillsides.

640,000 acres across seven counties and barely any crowds

The National Park Service designated about 10,000 acres here as a National Natural Landmark in 1986. The byway earned its National Scenic Byway designation in 2000.

Altogether, the Loess Hills cover more than 640,000 acres across seven western Iowa counties and support one of the best raptor migration corridors on the continent.

Despite that global significance, the hills stay uncrowded and largely unknown outside the state. The landscape shifts with every season, from snow-covered bluffs in winter to wildflower-covered ridges in spring.

Drive the Loess Hills Byway in western Iowa

You can pick up the byway from Interstate 29 or Interstate 80 and follow it from Akron in northwest Iowa all the way south to the Missouri border.

The 220-mile main route is fully paved, but the 185 miles of side loops include gravel roads. Hitchcock Nature Center charges $5 per vehicle for entry and opens daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge visitor center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a $3 vehicle entry fee. Download the official byway guidebook before you go, because cell service gets thin in spots.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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