Sycamore Greenway Friends: Off the Beaten Path...but Close to Home

Have you noticed your favorite trails have become more popular in recent weeks? We are discovering again the importance of public spaces, parks, and trails that enhance out communities and offer recreation and relaxation to a country under stress.


Trillium at Shimek Ravine

Red-headed Woodpecker
Shimek Ravine

While I love seeing people out enjoying the Greenway and other local trails, sometimes it's nice to get away to somewhere a bit more secluded, where you can take the mask off and go without seeing another face for more than a few minutes--or hours even!

Over the past few weeks I stopped by two of the Bur Oak Land Trust properties here in town: Shimek Ravine in Iowa City, and Muddy Creek Preserve in Coralville. Although Bur Oak Land Trust has many amazing properties in and around Johnson County that are open for public hiking and other activities, you can also get a taste of wilderness without having to drive out of town.

Shimek Ravine is a woodpecker paradise. Tucked behind Shimek Elementary, this property has many tall trees and snags that echo with the sound of woodpeckers tapping, drumming, and calling as they go about their business. You can follow the narrow trail down to the creek the cuts through the bottom of the ravine, catching sight of trillium and mayapples in the spring. Cardinals and chickadees even seem a bit exotic in the woods rather than the suburban yards where I normally encounter them.

Dutchman's Breeches
Muddy Creek

Muddy Creek Preserve in Coralville is another wooded ravine, with woodpeckers, warblers, and another creek running through the bottom of a ravine. Spring beauty and Dutchman's breeches were blooming, attended by assorted bees and flies. The Land Trust has been hard at work restoring the property, and you can see less desirable trees marked for death with girdling cuts. Check in on Bur Oak Land Trust's property page when you for details about the boundaries (yours truly failed to do so and may have unintentionally wandered afield of the property).

Have you visited any new parks or natural areas in the past few weeks? Do you have plans to explore new places? There are many more Bur Oak properties I'd like to visit, not to mention those managed by Johnson County Conservation. But it's hard to tear myself away from the Greenway!