Explore Iowa’s Hidden Beauty on a Hike Through Baileys Ford Park

My wife and I have had a goal for the past few years: to visit more of Iowa’s parks and wildlife areas. We want to find all the beautiful places in our home state that are secret and new trails. Which there are a lot of. We went on our most recent trip to Baileys Ford Park in Manchester, Iowa. It might have been one of our favorite walks so far.

Baileys Ford Park is just three miles southeast of Manchester on Jefferson Road. It has beautiful scenery and a lot of history. An engineer named Joel Bailey built his cabin there in 1838, right next to the Maquoketa River. His house was the first post office in Delaware County and an important stop for early visitors. More than 170 acres of land make up the park today. It has hiking walks, trout fishing, and lots of animals.

Around 10 a.m., we got to the park and were excited to see what new trails were there. We walked about 3.5 miles, which was split between well-kept hiking paths and a logging road that went through Milo Forest.

The tracks were well-kept, easy to find, and made me feel really alone and at peace. We went to hike in early spring, when there weren’t many people around. This gave us mostly empty trails to find our way around.

Thanks to Tom Drake Spring Branch goes toward the Maquoketa River from this crossing.

After going on a hike, we drove around the park to see everything. As we crossed a bridge at the back of the park, we stopped to enjoy the view of the Spring Branch Trout Stream. This is a very clear stream that is regularly filled with fish by the Iowa DNR. We saw a few people catch fish on reels.

We saw bald eagles swooping down to catch fish when we walked along the Maquoketa River earlier that day. We saw a lot of different animals in the wooded areas, like deer, birds, rabbits, buzzards, and more.

Baileys Ford Park is more than just a place to go hiking for the day. It has more than 70 camping spots, some of which are primitive and others with water and electricity hookups. There is also a camp place for kids. Family fun can be had at the parks, picnic areas, and sand volleyball court.

On the trout stream, there is a fishing stand that people with disabilities can use. There are also many other places to fish along the stream and in the Maquoketa River. The Maquoketa River can be reached by boat ramp and canoe or kayak, making it a great place to spend the whole weekend.

If you want to do more fun things in Iowa, you should put Baileys Ford Park on your list. It has something truly unique to offer, with its deep past in Iowa, well-kept trails, wildlife, and peaceful trout stream. This secret gem is a great place to go hiking, camping, fishing, or kayaking.

Iowa has so many things to see and do.