A Week At Waubonsie…Day 4
Pictured above: Loess Hills just outside Council Bluffs.
Day four of my residency will probably remain on my list of favorite photo days for a very long time. My previous visits were limited to day trips and confined to small pockets of the nearly 640,000 acres of the Loess Hills. I wanted to have a chance to get an overall view of the hills beyond the well-known and favorite spots for visitors.
Leaving the cabin just after sunrise and armed with a map and list of stops I hoped to make along the way, I jumped onto Loess Hills National Scenic Byway and headed north. My intention for the day was not necessarily to be hyper focused on photos but rather to enjoy the experience and gather a better feel for the hills and changes in their typography along the way.
A couple hours into my drive I hit my first snag. Somewhere in the jumble of signage around Council Bluffs I got off course. If I’ve learned one thing in landscape photography, it’s no wrong turn is wasted. In my efforts to relocate the scenic byway I encountered a section of the hills covered in bare trees. With temperatures in the low twenties the frosty branches were practically glowing in the morning sun.
After snapping a few photos and confirming my directions I followed the byway north and east along Railroad Highway where I quickly became distracted by terraced farm fields and beautiful barns. To focus on the hills, I had to keep telling myself that I was not here to take pictures of barns but occasionally, I gave in. Afterall, according to a 2013 report from Iowa State University farmland makes up over half of the land use in the hills.
From Railroad Highway the scenic byway jogs North cutting in and out of the hills and zigzagging back and forth from the east side to the west. It was well after lunch time when I finally came to Pisgah in Harrison County. My entire plan of stops had been chucked out the window (not literally) somewhere back near Logan, but I did get to pass through more familiar places, where I grabbed a few quick photos along Sawmill Hollow Loop of some old barns I had captured during my very first trip. There is something reassuring about returning and finding the familiar.
To be honest, nothing about my little road trip turned out how I had intended. By the time I reached Sioux City I had begun to feel as though I might have wasted an entire day. The only thing left on my list of places I had hoped to see was Broken Kettle Grasslands and I was determined to follow through on at least that.
Broken Kettle is a 4,500-acre prairie preserve located near the northern most portion of the hills. It is Iowa’s largest remnant of the prairie that had once covered most of the state and it was absolutely the cherry on top of my days drive. You’re not able to enter the preserve but the views are some of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Iowa. It has a feel of being untouched and wild especially when you spot bison herds roaming through the valley and across it’s smaller ridges. I also could not believe my luck when a storm began to roll in directly across from my vantage point, adding tension to an already dramatic scene.
Broken Kettle Grasslands.
Getting an opportunity to observe the Loess Hills from south to the north in a day was overwhelming, emotional, and amazing. It’s graceful undulations and ridges ever present but varying in degree and sharpness are a wonder. There are also noticeable man-influenced differences from pockets littered with salvage and wild overgrowth to pristine, well-kept acres of grassland, forest, and farms; things I may otherwise have missed had I wandered through in the summer or early fall. This will be a drive I hope to take again, perhaps at a slower pace and now with a bit more knowledge and awareness.
Pictured above: Storm clouds rolling in over Broken Kettle Grasslands.
A “Week in Waubonsie” is my latest series I created after spending my first artist in residency at Waubonsie State Park in the Loess Hills. I’m excited to be sharing this journey over the next several weeks as I also begin the process of developing my first official collection, also titled “A Week in Waubonsie”. I hope you return soon to see the latest release or you can sign up below to receive automatic email notifications.
