Paved recreational trail featuring 13-story-high (40-meter) and nearly half-mile-long (770-meter) trestle bridge providing scenic views of the Des Moines River Valley

How to Get There

Overview

High Trestle Trail is a rail trail running from Ankeny to Woodward in central Iowa. The recreation trail opened on April 30, 2011. It is a paved recreational trail that runs through the Polk, Story, Boone, and Dallas counties. The trail's name is derived from a former 1913 bridge that spanned the Des Moines River between the towns of Madrid and Woodward.

Development

The High Trestle Trail follows the route of a former Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) freight line between Woodward and Ankeny, Iowa. UPRR first proposed retiring the line in 2003. The lowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF), which had organized other rail-trail projects in Iowa, bought the 439 acres (178 ha) corridor from UPRR in 2005. INHF then transferred sections of the land to partner agencies in the five cities and four counties within the corridor.

Construction on the trail, designed by engineering firm Snyder and Associates, Inc. began in early 2006 to include 1,010 feet (310 m) of trail in Woodward. In 2007, bookend projects in Woodward and Ankeny were constructed. With the help of additional state and federal grants, 20 additional miles of trail were completed and opened to the public in 2008.

The last portion to be completed was the high bridge over the Des Moines River. The project was officially completed with the grand opening of the bridge in April 2011.

Trestle bridge

The 13-story-high (40-meter) and nearly half-mile-long (770-meter) trestle bridge provides scenic views of the Des Moines River Valley and is located near mining shafts that were worked by immigrant families and others who settled nearby. The bridge decking incorporates a decorative structure that represents the view through a mine shaft, and its design includes decorative lighting that remains on until 10:30 pm in the summer and 9:00 pm in the winter.

The bridge was originally built in the 1970s to carry rail traffic on a Milwaukee Road line. With the retirement of that rail line in the early 2000s, the original bridge deck was removed, and its steel I-beams were reused for a new Union Pacific bridge in Boone. However, the piers (or trestles) remained in place, and the original piers now support a new deck designed for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Between the removal of the original decking and the construction of its replacement, the single-file line of unconnected concrete piers was informally known as "Iowa's Stonehenge".

Connections to other recreational trails

The High Trestle Trail connects at Slater to the 32-mile (51 km) Heart of Iowa Nature Trail in Story and Marshall counties.

The High Trestle Trail lies between two 100-mile (160 km) recreational trail loops near Des Moines. The western loop involves the Raccoon River Valley Trail and the Clive Greenbelt Trail. The eastern loop includes the Heart of Iowa Nature Trail, the Chichaqua Valley Trail and the Gay Lea Wilson Trail.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "High Trestle Trail", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0