Best Hikes in Iowa

Iowa's ranked summits split unevenly across the state. Eight of the fourteen — Sherrill Mound, Sundown Mountain, Centenial Cross, North Bluff, South Bluff, Goose Rock, Chimney Rock and Mount Hosmer — sit within about 60 miles of Dubuque, on the unglaciated Mississippi River bluffs of the Driftless Area, the same ice-age-skipped terrain that produces Wisconsin's own Blue Mounds one state over. Four more — Corn Hill, Mount Trashmore, The Hogback and Steamboat Rock — are scattered elsewhere across the rest of eastern Iowa, outside that bluff country. The remaining two sit apart from both: Battle Hill (1,273 feet) and Dakota Point (1,293 feet, the group's actual high point) are about 48 miles apart in the Loess Hills along the Missouri River, 245+ miles west of the Dubuque cluster — wind-blown Ice Age silt built into one of the only landforms of its kind and scale anywhere outside China's own Loess Plateau. Iowa's official state high point, Hawkeye Point (1,670 feet, a developed roadside stop in Osceola County), isn't in this database with a confirmed route yet — and neither is its old rival, Ocheyedan Mound, which Iowans were told for decades was the true summit until a 1971 resurvey found Hawkeye Point sitting a few dozen feet higher, a few miles away. Dakota Point's 0.4-mile out-and-back is the shortest hike in the group; Chimney Rock's 15.1-mile route is the longest. 11 more Iowa summits are already queued in the database — these 14 are simply the ones with a confirmed route and elevation profile today.