Effigy Mounds National Monument

So glad we came to this park.
It’s very nice to learn about Iowa’s lesser known history.
We hiked about 3.5 miles round trip. The trail was steep at times but very do-​able. Signs were clearly marked and the views of the Mississippi were great!
The grounds and markers were well kept and there were plenty of recycling bins and trash cans along the way. This park can definitely keep you busy for the better part of a day. If you have kids or are pushing strollers, the paths are wide and I don’t recall climbing stairs at all.
Very well maintained trails!

Gorgeous scenery, and an interesting learning opportunity.

This National Park Unit is another one of those that preserves a little-​known part of our national heritage: the mound-​building cultures of the Mississippi Valley and Midwest. Because the mounds are difficult to discern from ground level, and because the original mound builders are no longer in the area, the visitors center and cultural outreach are not as developed as at other NPS units that deal with the sacred sites or historical settlements of native cultures. Really this site is more of a place to hike than a place to learn.
But it’s a beautiful site, with hiking trails traveling up the bluffs and through quiet woods to overlook the Mississippi. This is the Driftless Region, much hillier and folded up than the parts of Iowa, only a little bit west of here, that were ground down by ancient glaciers. That means that the hike is an actual hike up several hundred feet in elevation, rather than a traipse along a short trail loop.
Also, this is going to mark me as a huge nerd, but I’m going to say it anyway. So I collect stamps from NPS units in a Passport to your National Parks. And when I asked for this location’s stamps at the visitors center, the ranger was oddly stand-​offish about it. Like she seemed to kind of resent the fact that I was asking. Odd but didn’t ruin the experience. I think there are a fair number of people who just run into visitors centers, get their stamps, and run out. So maybe she was grumpy about that. Who knows.

What an awesome place this was, so glad I spent a day there. The hiking can be as challenging as you want it to be — there are shorter hikes that take half a day or so, and longer ones that run the entire length of the park. There’s also a day use section on the southern end of the park that I didn’t have time for. At the beginning of the trails in the main section, there’s a tough switchback, but after that they are mostly flat through the first half and take you through some beautiful woods and to some amazing vistas over the river. There’s also a cool feature they’re trying out involving a self-​guided tour via cell phone, where you call a number at specified locations and get an explanation of what you’re seeing.
The park staff was very helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable. I found everything about the mounds and their history utterly fascinating. As one reviewer said below, put it in context and don’t expect Yellowstone, but it is really a great and recommended stop.

I give this contextually 5 stars — it is not Yellowstone, for crying out loud. But the mounds are sacred places, and the forest and river are beautiful. The staff at the museum were very helpful and informative, and as of April, 2011 they are no longer charging fees for use of the trails or museum. Great place to visit and return to again and again.

Most folks think that Iowa is flat and hence uninteresting. At least in the North East part of my Home State, the geography is hilly and the scenery is stunning. And it’s home to Iowa’s only National Park/​Monument.
Prehistoric mounds are common from the plains of the Midwest to the Atlantic seaboard, but only in this general area was there a culture that regularly constructed mounds in the shape of mammals, birds, or reptiles. The monument contains 2,526 acres with 206 mounds, of which 31 are effigies. The others are conical, linear and compound. Woodland period Indians built mounds from about 500 BC until the early European contact period. When the American prairies were plowed under by European settlers for agriculture, many mound sites were lost. Effigy Mounds National Monument is the largest known collection of mounds in the United States.
The mounds themselves are a bit underwhelming and I needed help in knowing what I was seeing. The good folks here are ready to help and if anything, a good hike and the view of the Mighty Mississippi makes this visit most worthwhile.

Great little tourist distraction if you ask me! The hiking can be pretty intense if you are out of shape. You have to scale up those river bluffs along the Mississippi River which is no small feat. The forest which the park is in is gorgeous though! It is almost all a hardwood forest, very much unlike the forests where I am from which is all evergreen. That means in the fall the park is probably beautiful with fall colors when that time rolls around.
Once you are up on the bluffs you can some totally awesome views! You can see the Mississippi at many different vantage points.
Of course there are the mounds themselves. These mounds were made by Native Americans that once lived in the area. They are burial mounds but I am not sure if anyone is still buried there. There were excavations done here years ago and many of the people that were buried here were removed. The Effigy Mounds still play a huge roll to Native American tribes that once lived here and religious ceremonies are still performed here.
The mounds themselves are going to be in two shapes. Either one as a bear or as birds. Unfortunately we did not have time to go see bird mounds but we did see a couple of bear mounds which once you reach a certain perspective these mounds really do look like bears!
I would recommend this place to anyone that is geek to visiting National Parks and Monuments just take lots of water and take breaks if you need to during the hiking since the bluffs are very steep to hike on.

When I was younger I had eagerly wanted to stop at Iowa’s only National Park/​Monument in Effigy Mounds. It’s located in the most scenic part of the Hawkeye State. I think those years of anticipation had set me up for a let-​down when I was finally able to visit this park a short time ago.
The office facility was very nice and informative. They did a great job of helping to visualize this historic area. The park itself is very underwhelming from the ground level. And invigorating hike takes you to non-​descript and unimpressive lumps of earth. The views of the river are breathtaking, but the historic mounds themselves are hard to conceptualize. Unless these mounds were pointed out to me, I would have walked right past them in the wilderness without a second thought. The greatest payoff of this visit were the artifacts in the office, and the brief movie before visiting the mounds themselves.
Friendly staff and a good way to learn about Native American culture and to burn an hour if you are in the area. I would not plan a trip around this venue however.