Menu
Menu
Menu
Park size: 120 acres
“Van Peenan” (as the locals call it) is Decorah's largest park, at 120 acres, and contains miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing, all winding through everything from tallgrass prairie to dense pine woods to rocky ravines. The trails—largely built and maintained by local volunteers working with Decorah’s Parks and Recreation office—also connect with Ice Cave Hill, Dunning’s Spring, and Palisades Park, so you really could spend hours (maybe days!) exploring. This is a wildlife area, so does not have facilities for picnicking or camping.
Just one mile south of Decorah, the Chuck Gipp Decorah Fish Hatchery offers a whole range of adventures and excitement.
Get up close to see how trout—nearly 130,000 of them every year—are raised in 24 cement raceways, from young fingerlings only a few inches long to huge brooders that offer anglers a “once-in-a-lifetime” catch. The trout raised in Decorah are stocked in streams across Northeast Iowa and even in several urban lakes in Iowa. Visit the Iowa DNR website for the most recent information on when and where streams are stocked across northeast Iowa. Detailed trout fishing guides are available for Winneshiek and Allamakee counties.
Siewers Springs provides the cold water necessary for rearing trout, and a stunning photo backdrop perfect for selfies. The hatchery grounds have streamside fishing, picnic areas, walking paths through prairie plantings, a modern restroom and shelter, and a picturesque limestone office and residence built in the 1930s as a project of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The Trout Run Trail offers a nice, flat ride from Decorah to the hatchery, passing over Trout Run Creek, along prairies, and under cottonwoods. Just across the street from the Hatchery, the trail passes by Decorah's famous eagle nest. Thanks to a live stream “nest cam,” the Decorah bald eagles are known around the world as viewers watch new eagles hatch, grow, and eventually take flight. Click here to see for yourself.
The hatchery is open to the public 365 days a year from sunrise to sunset. Group tours can be scheduled by calling the hatchery at 563-382-8324. Office hours are 7:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
How To Get Here: From Highway 9, take Trout Run Road for about 1.5 miles. Turn south on Siewers Spring Road to the hatchery.
Park size: 105 acres
Facilities: picnic shelter, picnic table, bench, butterfly garden, trails for hiking, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing
The City of Decorah established the 34-acre Decorah Community Prairie in 2002, initially to help reduce flooding, slow runoff, and stop soil erosion along the Upper Iowa River. It was seeded with about seventy species of prairie plants, and volunteers helped hand-plant over 12,000 additional individual wildflowers!
The butterfly garden was created to introduce visitors to the native plants of the prairie, to provide a place of enjoyment, and to help preserve our native butterflies and other pollinators who through the ages have required specific native plants. The prairie and butterfly garden provide a quiet wildness within the center of the city. The paved walkway in the butterfly garden and the wide, flat paths that wind through the prairie are a popular spot for hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and walking dogs. The butterfly garden has a sun shelter, picnic table, and benches.
Park size: 2 acres
The Decorah Dog park features two fenced-in areas, one marked for small dogs and one for larger dogs, as well as a picnic shelter and table. The road between the park and the cornfield is a private drive, so there is no parking allowed next to the dog park. Dog park users can instead use the Wal-Mart lot.
701 College Drive, Decorah IA 52101
An outdoor, Olympic-size swimming pool with a waterslide, diving boards, children's zero-depth, and shallow play area, playground with sand area, concession stand, and picnic area. Call and ask about hosting birthday parties and other kids' get-togethers.
Park size: 115 acres
This picturesque 200-foot waterfall is spring-fed, meaning the water is almost always right around 45° Fahrenheit and the waterfall runs year-round. A unique stone arch bridge and a wooden staircase take you to the top of the spring, where you can look down to where the water runs right out of the rocks and down the waterfall.
The park, located just minutes from downtown Decorah, also serves as one of the trailheads for a large hiking and mountain biking system. If you’re up for a steep climb, head up the trail for a spectacular view of Decorah.
How To Get Here:
From College Drive, follow Quarry Street for .4 miles to the spring entrance. Parking is available on Quarry Street. No parking is available at the waterfall.
Not sure if this is the best to include here. What most people think of as the "Park" is much smaller (just the waterfall area).
The Decorah Ice Cave State Preserve contains one of the largest “ice caves” in the Midwest. Ice forms inside the cave when cold winter air enters the cave and drops the temperature of the surrounding rock walls. When spring thaws occur, water seeps into the cave, freezing upon contact with the icy walls. The ice reaches its maximum thickness in June, then slowly melts over the summer.
You don’t have to go into the cave to feel the ice-chilled air that leaks out even on the hottest summer days. For those that do wish to enter, know that the cave can be slippery, there could be overhead falling rock, and the cave is “enter at your own risk” with no supervision. Visits in the wintertime are not recommended. Minor children must be accompanied by an adult, and a good flashlight is recommended. Respect barriers. The City of Decorah is not responsible for accidents or injuries.
Ice Cave is a state preserve, so nothing should be collected or taken from the area and no markings or other damage left.
160-acre Lake Meyer Park and Campground is located just outside of Calmar, about 20 minutes south of Decorah.
The campground has 28 electric sites, restrooms and a shower house, water, and a dump station. The campground area also has a playground, a large grassy area, a ball diamond, and a timber-frame picnic shelter with 9 picnic tables (available for reservation).
The 32-acre lake offers canoeing, kayaking, boating with electric motors, and fishing for bass, bluegill, crappie, northern pike, and catfish. There are two fishing docks (one of them is handicap-accessible), a large fishing jetty, lots of shoreline fishing, and one of the best public ice fishing locations in the county.
Nearly three miles of hiking trails wander through high-quality prairies, wetlands, pine woods, and hardwood forests. The trails are not to be missed in the spring, when the spring wildflowers put on their show, or during fall leaf change.
How to get here: Located between Calmar and Fort Atkinson off Highway 24.
Park size: 105 acres
Palisades Park provides scenic overlooks of the city of Decorah, whether from cars, bikes, or your own two feet. Picnic areas are available and many miles of mountain biking and hiking trails meander throughout the entire park area.
Park Size: 56 acres
Phelps Park is Decorah’s oldest park, established in 1911; check out the informational panels in the park to see what the park was like back then. It offers eight picnic shelters, three playground areas, restrooms, drinking fountains, and grills. Phelps Park features a great deal of stonework—walls, pillars, and even a fountain—built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Across the street from the main parking area, you can access a trail that stretches along the bluffside, giving great views of the Upper Iowa River and Decorah Community Prairie, eventually dropping down to access the Trout Run Trail near Dug Road and Decorah’s Pulpit Rock Campground.
Just up the street from the main part of Phelps Park is Whalen Cabin, reservable for small gatherings with a grassy area, volleyball court, fire ring, small kitchen, indoor and outdoor dining spaces, and the historic Schulze Brick Kiln.
How to get here:
Follow Broadway Street to the west to Upper Broadway in Decorah.
Riverside Park is just that, a beautiful park nestled along the banks of the Turkey River. It is home to the Inwood Ballroom, one of the few remaining ballrooms in Iowa, where there have been community and private dances swinging since 1922. Around the ballroom and park, there’s a small campground, music stage, horseshoe pits, picnic shelters, a playground, and a ball diamond with dugouts, lights, concession stands, and bleachers. The park also features a memorial to famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak, who spent the summer of 1893 in Spillville.
Riverside Park is home to a lot of events, including music festivals, ball games and tournaments, town celebrations, and one of the best 4th of July firework shows in the state!
Park size: 48 acres
This park offers picnic grounds and excellent trout fishing thanks to the coldwater stream that bubbles up out of the namesake spring. An easy trail winds along the stream, and the old rearing ponds and cement chutes that used to serve as the Iowa DNR hatchery before the one at Siewer Springs opened.
At the springhead, another looping trail heads into the hills above the stream. The park facilities include benches, picnic tables, ground grills, a stocked trout stream, a children's fishing pond, and trails for hiking, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing.
How to get here: Located off Highway 52, a half-mile north of the Highway 9 intersection.
Park size: 31 acres
This picturesque 200-foot waterfall is spring-fed, meaning the water is almost always right around 45° Fahrenheit and the waterfall runs year-round. A unique stone arch bridge and a wooden staircase take you to the top of the spring, where you can look down to where the water runs right out of the rocks and down the waterfall.
The park, located just minutes from downtown Decorah, also serves as one of the trailheads for a large hiking and mountain biking system. If you’re up for a steep climb, head up the trail for a spectacular view of Decorah.
How To Get Here:
From College Drive, follow Quarry Street for .4 miles to the spring entrance. Parking is available on Quarry Street. No parking is available at the waterfall.
Malanaphy Springs State Preserve is a great place for a hike, with a narrow trail stretching about a mile along the Upper Iowa River, through a protected forest bursting with specialized plants and limestone outcroppings. The trail ends at Malanaphy Springs, a series of cascading falls that flow over porous lime deposits and eventually drop 25-feet in the Upper Iowa River. Malanaphy Springs is a state preserve, meaning all users should remain on the established trail and no gathering, picking, or taking of anything is allowed.
How to get here:
From the intersection of Iowa Highway 9 and US Highway 52, follow Highway 52 north. In one mile, turn left (west) on Pole Line Road. In 2.2 miles turn right onto Bluffton Road. In .7 miles take note of a parking lot on the right. The spring is a 1-mile walk.
Floating Directions
The waterfall itself is best viewed from the water. When referring to the Upper Iowa Paddlers Guide, Malanaphy Springs is just short of bridge 10 on your float down from Bluffton, Iowa.
This waterway is technically a spillway, but the stone columns at Siewers Spring are too beautiful not to see. Located near the back of the grounds of the Chuck Gipp Decorah FIsh Hatchery, it supplies the cold water necessary for raising trout in the hatchery’s raceways. While you’re there, hop on the Trout Run Trail, have a picnic, or visit Decorah’s famous eagle’s nest right across the street.
How to get here:
Follow Highway 9 East to Trout Run Road. Follow Trout Run Road south for 1.6 miles to the Chuck Gipp Decorah Fish Hatchery.
