Hi, I'm Kellie Kramer.
And I'm Scott Siepker.
Welcome to the beauty of Northeast Iowa on Iowa
Public Television.
And the latest edition of Iowa Outdoors.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Coming up on Iowa Outdoors --
We go off road near Fort Dodge --
Dive deeper into the legacy of Iowa's mining history --
Then sunrise in Western Iowa with Buck Christensen.
And explore a trail in a minute.
We'll have all that and more.
So sit tight, Iowa Outdoors is about to
begin.
Funding for Iowa Outdoors is provided by the Claude P.
Small, Kathryn Small Cousins and William Carl
Cousins Fund at the Lincoln Way Community
Foundation in Clinton County to support nature
programming on Iowa Public Television.
And by the Alliant Energy Foundation.
Many of Iowa's natural wonders you'll find on
Iowa Public Television can be found in Iowa Outdoors
magazine, the Iowa DNR's premier resource for
conservation, education and recreation activities.
Subscription information can be found online at
iowadnr.gov.
Welcome to our seventh season of Iowa Outdoors.
And a journey that will take you from here in
Northeast Iowa all the way to our state's Western Rim
in the Loess Hills.
But first, we'll venture on four wheels to a type
of park rapidly emerging among outdoors-minded
Iowans.
A growing community of adventure seekers is using
off-highway vehicles.
And our state has several great parks specifically
designed for your next off-road adventure.
Whether you're a daring adrenaline seeker, or want
to cruise along slowly in a multi-passenger vehicle,
these OHV parks have something for everyone
right here in Iowa.
(engine starts)
As more and more people buy
off-highway vehicles, or OHVs, there is more demand
for places to ride them.
OHV is an umbrella term that includes all-terrain
vehicles, or ATVs, off-road motorcycles like
dirt bikes, side-by-side machines and snowmobiles.
Midway through the process of building and designing
this park, all of a sudden we have a new machine that
is the fastest growing machine out there now, the
side-by-sides are family oriented, people that want
to take their spouse that may or may not want to
ride, they can switch off if they both want to
drive, you can take your family out.
It makes the sport way more sociable to go out
and visit with your friends and you stop and
you can point out the wildlife or whatever you
want to do while you're out riding.
About 30 years ago, Iowa didn't have any parks
where people could legally ride off-highway vehicles.
Now, there are eight parks scattered across the
state.
Gypsum City OHV Park, located southeast of Fort
Dodge, is the largest park in Iowa for motorized
recreation.
At almost 800 acres, it's about as big as the other
seven Iowa parks combined and features more than 60
miles of trails.
I've ridden all over the country, the United States
and Canada, and these are as good a trails as there
are in the Midwest, or in the country actually.
People that come out to ride these trails are just
blown away once they get out here and see what we
actually have.
Matt Cosgrove: So the ability to be able to
provide that active recreation in the motorize
sport, provide a tourism area for our community and
then also be able to manage wildlife on an 800
acre facility, all is a great, fits within the
mission of what we do on the Webster County
Conservation Board.
The park sits on land that was once used for gypsum
mining.
Iowa ranks third in the country in gypsum
production.
And two-thirds of Iowa's gypsum comes from the Fort
Dodge area, an industry dating back to the 1850s.
Three different national companies donated the park
property.
The land is no longer suitable for urban
development, or much of anything else, but the
combination of flat open areas with rolling hills,
tight turns and wooded terrain is perfect for an
OHV park.
Dennis Plautz: We have a lot of property that could
be reclaimed.
We have additional property that we think
will be reclaimed and owned for further
recreational purposes once the gypsum is mined out of
it.
It's a perfect reuse for property like this and it
avoids reclamation laws that previously existed
for those companies.
So it's really a win-win for everyone.
George Pirie: They're all good that I've been to but
I think this one is the best.
It's the hilliest and it's just about all timber in
phase two anyway, and for us guys we couldn't do
much better in Iowa.
(engine starts)
There are three phases within Gypsum
City, with dirt and gravel trails tailored to
different vehicles.
The park also offers a small track for kids, a
training or practice area for beginners, a mudding
area and even non-trail recreation opportunities
like fishing ponds.
The campers will be able to view right out over the
top of those ponds, they can come down, we'll have
fishing docks.
We have the opportunity to ride a week for trails and
not get bored.
We've got the ponds, the wildlife, it's a great
opportunity.
So every time I get here and see people enjoying
it, it was worth the 16 years.
Our trails are all marked for numbers, with over 60
miles of trail it's pretty easy to lose track of
where you're at, so we have a numbering system
and then we have a difficulty rating system
too.
So we try to provide something for everybody.
Tasha Nielsen: I love being out here.
It's enjoyable and then just the pure enjoyment of
people coming out here and able to enjoy where I work
and what I do and get to see all of this.
For those looking for a little more adventure or a
tougher challenge, there are a couple of areas in
the park designed to provide an extra thrill.
We've got some of these guys and myself once in a
while that lie to get out there and put the machine
to its best, see how much of an incline you can go,
we have logs, rocks and stuff, it's a slower
building trail, our slower running trail.
We can get up, it's more of an obstacle course,
sometimes you're not going to make it, sometimes
you're going to bend a fender.
But it's not for everybody.
So we have those dedicated areas for the people that
want to go out and really put their machine to the
task, put their abilities to the task and see how
much they can do.
It's a lot of fun.
They do need to be registered with the state
of Iowa.
So in this sport they pay to play, so they pay a
registration sticker much like fishing and hunting
licenses, that sort of thing, they register their
machine and then that money goes back into the
program to be able to support these parks and
the system.
So we do require a helmet, so unlike on road traffic
in Iowa you don't need a helmet, in Iowa's
designated OHV parks you're required to have a
helmet as well.
Gypsum City OHV Park is a collaboration between
local organizations and city, county and state
government entities.
Everyone working together is one of the keys to
success.
It's a nice marriage with Brushy Creek and with the
trails the city has built, the trails the county has
built, having this and having connections to all
of these things makes it a great place in the middle
of rural Iowa to come and recreate.
It can be a dangerous sport.
So safety is stressed.
Wear proper clothes and equipment.
Follow the park rules.
And take a safety course online or hands-on.
Do those things and just about anyone can enjoy
riding.
We've got a lot of 60-some-year-old riders
coming up to utilize the single track in this park.
It's all ages.
People with disabilities, I'm in a wheelchair, I got
hurt in a diving accident, with a slight modification
to the side-by-side I'm out here recreating with
all my friends.
I always say it's a great equalizer.
This isn't just a guy sport, it's a family
sport.
A lot of our clubs are about 50/50 men and women
riding, a lot of the gals go out and ride on their
own machines and actually go ride without the guys.
I never thought I would have a side-by-side but
last March I bought one, principally for hunting,
but I find myself driving it out here and doing
these kinds of things more than I use it hunting.
It's fun.
I have a handicapped son that is 17 and he just
loves coming out in this side-by-side.
So I take him a lot on the weekends.
After nearly two decades of work, Gypsum City is a
premier destination for off-highway vehicle riding
and other outdoor recreation, a destination
organizers hope will soon attract hundreds of
thousands of visitors a year.
I think motorized recreation in Iowa is
definitely increasing.
You see more people pulling trailers, we're
getting requests a lot of times, we're seeing
visitors already coming out of Minnesota, the
Omaha area, so it's starting to draw people
out of some of the larger urban communities that
don't have these type of opportunities.
I love every time we come out here and get to show
it off.
We're very proud of it.
I think we hit a home run on what we wanted to do
and what we accomplished.
To the average individual driving across Iowa, they
may assume that our state's single greatest
resource is at the soil level and above.
But look below the corn and soybeans and you'll
find an even richer story.
A generation before modern conservation efforts, Iowa
mining companies laid siege to the natural
resources of Southern Iowa.
Today, the clock is ticking on mine
reclamation efforts to save the land for the next
generation.
♪♪
Tucked behind the rolling hills of Southern
Iowa hides the story of an industry that once fueled
our state and the nation.
Without question, the first real boom crop of
Iowa was coal.
With coal having been discovered across 26 Iowa
counties, from the 1840s to the 1970s, more than
12,000 acres of Iowa land were mined.
Over 40 years since the last coal mine closed,
remnants of this once thriving industry are
still visible, that being hundreds of abandoned
surface mines.
Susan Kozak: So the surface mining law came
into effect in 1977 so anything prior to that
didn't have any regulations on coal
mining.
And so that is what happened here, the people
would come out, they would mine, they would toss the
good topsoil behind them, they would put all the
spoil of the trail on top of that and then just walk
away when they got all the coal out and move onto the
next site.
With abandoned mines ranging in size from a few
acres to well over 100, sites such as this one
just south of Attica are impressive visually, but
they are also a perfect representation of
environmental indifference.
The detrimental effects of these sites impacts
rivers, soils, wildlife habitats and quality of
life miles from their locations.
Bobby Kuennen: You can see the red water that is
coming off these sites, what we call acid mine
drainage, and it's a very low pH, high iron levels
in this water that is coming off these sites and
going into the adjacent streams, which eventually
will get into, at this point, into the Des Moines
River, which is used for a lot of these communities'
water source.
Today, the abandoned mine land staff of the state
Mines and Minerals Bureau heads the effort to
reclaim these sites.
Since 1983, Mines and Minerals has developed a
statewide site inventory, interpreting and ranking
environmental assessments for each site, and working
with landowners to develop reclamation plans that
best suit the land use of each project.
Randy Cooney: Every site is a little different and
responds a little different, but the key
point to keep in mind here is all of the mine spoil
and everything that was here before is still here
and all we have done in the excavation process was
move it around, we created slopes that are more
gentle, less likely for erosion, but it's still
there and it's going to take it a while for it to
bounce back and support that vegetation.
Transforming a mine from abandoned dormancy, to
active reclamation project, to treated and
seeded Earth, is an arduous process.
But the most important stage comes from
landowners themselves wherein conservative land
management will allow the reclamation to hold.
Two years past the active stage of reclamation, Todd
Teach's land is showing vibrant signs of life with
grass growing, wildlife returning and a much
healthier water shed.
Todd Teach: There was no cattails growing in the
old site or the water or anything.
The pH was just way low and it wouldn't support
any life, where now you've got frogs and stuff is
growing in it.
Before a mine comes close to looking like Todd's,
the active process of reclamation is where the
real work takes place.
Just east of Knoxville, this site is a good
representation of the many characteristics of an
abandoned mine.
So we have the high wall, we usually have the low
area, which is the pond, and then we have the piles
behind it.
Spoil piles, high walls and pit ponds are found at
virtually every abandoned mine with each situation
representing a different hazard.
Spoil piles typify the remnants of hazardous
materials and stripped Earth.
High walls often hide treacherous cliffs to
animals and humans and pit ponds are stagnant pools
of dangerously acidic mine runoff that can sit for
decades without draining.
We get some of our sites that would be turquoise or
orange in color virtually clear, you can see down in
because there's nothing surviving in them.
Recovering mistreated land looks a lot like a
construction site, with bulldozers and Earth
movers clearing debris, establishing gentle
hillsides for drainage, and filling in the low
lying area with natural material before draining
any remaining runoff.
When there's something growing that's a good
sign.
If it will grow weeds, it will grow grass.
There you go.
As none of Iowa's reclaimed mines are on
public land, ultimately private landowners are
responsible for the long-term success of
reclamation efforts.
So in the final stage of land management, a
farmer's knowledge of caring for their soil
becomes extremely important.
Any time you're adding that compost it makes the
ground healthier from what it is.
You're building the organic matter up in it,
especially this type of ground, it can use all the
organic matter it can get.
There's just virtually none in it.
One thing that they have to keep in mind right away
is even though this no longer resembles the mine
site that it was before, it is still not the same
as other property they may have and this is going to
take a lot more care to make sure that you're not
overgrazing or you're not mowing it too low or if
you happen to take hay off from it you don't cut it
three times a year.
While Todd's land is vibrant and prospering,
there are still many sites waiting to be reclaimed.
In the 30 plus years Mines and Minerals has been
tasked with reclaiming surface mines, only 100
different sites have been restored.
It is a little bit disconcerting to know how
far we have to go, that we've been working at this
for 30 years and we're only a third of the way
through of our sites.
And depending on the future of the program, it
is set to sunset in 2021, I'm optimistic for a
reauthorization so that we'll continue the work,
but we don't know that future yet.
A year after our first visit to Attica,
reclamation efforts are finally underway.
And while the wheels of conservation may be
deliberate, one by one the environmental blights of
Southern Iowa are slowly but surely being erased
from Iowa's countryside.
It's excitement to see everything that we get
done because this is from pre-reclamation to almost
done and then in a year we'll have grass out here
and it will be very hard to tell that it was an
abandoned mine site at that point.
It requires a lot of patience because the
process is not quick and there is such an inventory
and limitations on dollars that every landowner would
like to see theirs done, most of them, and they'd
like to see it done yesterday and it just
doesn't happen that quick.
It will be way beyond our careers that this is going
on but the satisfaction comes at that point when
we can drive by and go, we had a small hand in that.
♪♪
If you have 30 minutes each day to
photograph nature, where would you go?
It's a question often posed to one Western Iowa
photographer.
The answer forced him to rediscover the natural
beauty found just a short drive from his own home.
And even though the Omaha/Council Bluffs
region has its fair share of urban settings,
photographer Buck Christensen found his own
optical oasis and a moment in nature in his own back
yard.
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♪♪
Buck Christensen: I just love
it.
It's like the greatest place to start your day.
That's the biggest motivation I have.
It's not necessarily about photography, it's just
when you get there and you kind of settle in and you
stay still and the geese start gliding past you and
the frogs all start ignoring you, it's just
like you kind of become part of the scene.
♪♪
Buck Christensen starts his day a short
drive from home in Council Bluffs here at Lake Manawa
State Park where sunrises have been captivating him
for years.
Christensen: I think you're tempted as a
photographer, especially when you're starting out,
to use the tools and to see how far you can push
stuff and it's kind of fun to see how surrealistic
you can make something.
And then I think I've come to the point where I've
settled in and I like to represent it the way I saw
it or the way I felt it instead of this other
world that a lot of photographers seem to be
stuck in.
These early mornings are at the heart of Buck's
connection with nature and his camera lens.
But his photographic itch started before discovering
this signature mirrored image at Lake Manawa.
He spent years along the Western Rim of Iowa
documenting rural scenics and his favorite subjects
after long drives along our state's county roads.
Christensen: I get that people like certain
subject matters for photography.
But I appreciate barns and I appreciate windmills and
I appreciate lakes.
But as time marched on, Buck and his wife Terri
had a daughter, and the realities of life began to
shrink his photographic free time.
Buck had a choice, he could let his photographic
ambitions fade away, or find subjects closer to
home.
Christensen: It's very important to be able to
find some place around here just to be able to
just work it into my day, if I have fifteen minutes,
I can get somewhere in five minutes, I can take a
few shots, I Can kind of get that out of my system
and then go on with the rest of my busy day.
Let's steal one of yours.
No, I already have yellow, I need purple, I need
purple, I'm taking purple.
It's your turn.
Hey, if you get it you can steal it back.
Christensen: When I was forced to look more
locally, because I still had that passion to do
photography, and after we had our daughter it kind
of kept us here, so I still had that itch and so
I just started to look around at more familiar
places and that's when I found that spot, just kind
of happened by it and it's a series I've continued
since then, since about 2011.
♪♪
Christensen: It's so peaceful there,
especially at 6:15 in the morning.
Sometimes I get here and there's no wind and it's
crazy foggy and it's actually better when the
sun is high.
So I'll stay here until the last possible second I
have to rush home and go to work.
While the sunrise at Lake Manawa is clearly his
special place, he has found ways to document
nature in his other urban surroundings.
Along the Missouri River, a mixture of skyline,
water and the region's signature pedestrian
bridge have made for abundant photography
outings.
Christensen: There had to have been a better way to
go than this.
I think usually when I come this far it's just to
hang out.
You get two reference points of the bridge and
the Omaha skyline.
I've always liked the curves of it, it's really
cool.
Kind of what I always like to do is take an unlikely
place and try to find some type of beauty in what
you'd normally consider pedestrian.
Since it's not a mountain or an ocean or whatever
it's fun to completely obscure the background,
that's why I love the fog so much.
If you've seen my shots you know most of it is in
the fog.
There's more questions to be asked than there are
answers in a photo and I always love that.
It kind of creates a sense of timelessness or
placelessness.
It's just this weird figure disappearing into
the fog.
It's so fun.
I love that.
Christensen: Now, whether there are a bunch of
ticks, I don't know, maybe that will be bad.
In a location where the Loess Hills skirt the
central and eastern edge of Council Bluffs, Buck
has found symmetry and a unique juxtaposition
between the natural environment and the
region's industrial features.
Christensen: I shoot a lot in the mornings and you
come up here and it's just birds and deer and me and
it's gorgeous.
We used to travel a lot and that is kind of the
conception I had of photography was doing a
lot of travel photos and going to the ocean and
going to the mountains.
And this is the kind of place that I would look
for and find if I were to go visit somewhere else
and it's kind of crazy that it's so close to
home.
While the Loess Hills and the Missouri River have
provided ample opportunities, Buck's
favorite spot seems to be back at Lake Manawa in the
wee morning hours before many Iowans are even
awake.
Christensen: I love it.
It's just a place to completely forget about
whatever things you have going on in your life,
about whatever is stressing you.
It's a renewal, every time I go out and do it, it's
just an escape.
His signature photo collection is actually
focused on a small, narrow strip of land seemingly
floating in Lake Manawa.
It is known as Boy Scout Island to locals, who
generations ago as young boys spent summer nights
camping along the shoreline.
It's that personal history combined with striking
sunrise reflections that have caught the attention
of Buck's lens and his many fans.
Christensen: I do a lot of photography shows and as
soon as someone sees it they instantly recognize
it.
I've never had someone say, where is that?
They're always like, oh that's Boy Scout Island.
And then almost everyone has had a wedding there or
their kids used to play there 40 years ago or
whatever.
It's just like this common place.
And they were kind enough to just drift into the
frame so that kind of created a moment that I
wasn't prepared for but that I was prepared for.
I was taking a picture of it, they just drifted
right in and I snapped it and it's kind of one of my
new favorite images.
As he flips through hundreds of photos printed
from Lake Manawa sunrises, it is clear there are only
a fraction of the thousands of exposures
Buck has snapped along the rocky shoreline, and a
reminder that his destination close to home
is a perfect example of balancing photography and
family.
Christensen: I hear that all the time, I hear that
from friends who want to go take pictures, they
think they want to take pictures and then when it
comes time to go just run out and do it I don't
think they understand how accessible everything, how
easy it is, how little time you need to take to
just go out and five minutes away find a state
park or something and just go do it.
♪♪
It's time for IPTV's Trail in a Minute
where we show you a first person view of a different
Iowa hiking, biking or water trail each episode.
It's a great opportunity to relive a previous
outdoor experience or to plan a future adventure
and it's a pretty cool way to view the Iowa outdoors.
Take a look.
For a quick hike with a big payoff, look no
further than the Horseshoe Bluff Nature Trails in
Dubuque's Mines of Spain.
Tucked right along the Mississippi River at only
three quarters of a mile, the nature trail packs a
great deal of Iowa scenery and history.
Credited as the first European settlement in
Iowa, Mines of Spain's Horseshoe Bluff provides
picturesque wetlands to the south and beautiful
geological bluffs to the north.
As you wind your way along the trail, it won't take
long before hikers reach the awe-inspiring
horseshoe-shaped bluffs, from which the trail got
its name.
♪♪
After you have finished soaking in the
trail's geological history, it is time to
climb and get an even greater view of the bluffs
from above, and ultimately the Mississippi River.
♪♪
The Mines of Spain's Horseshoe Bluff
Nature Trail, a quick hike you won't want to miss.
That wraps up this episode of our seventh season of
Iowa Outdoors.
We encourage you to get outside and enjoy Iowa's
parks and recreational opportunities.
And if you're planning any outdoor travel, check out
our extensive video archive of adventures at
iptv.org/iowaoutdoors.
Our latest season of Iowa Outdoors will continue and
have more episodes than ever with stories from
every corner of our state.
We'll leave you now with some more images of Iowa's
outdoor environments.
(nature sounds)
(nature sounds)
(nature sounds)
(nature sounds)
Funding for Iowa Outdoors is
provided by the Claude P.
Small, Kathryn Small Cousins and William Carl
Cousins Fund at the Lincoln Way Community
Foundation in Clinton County to support nature
programming on Iowa Public Television.
And by the Alliant Energy Foundation.
Many of Iowa's natural wonders you'll find on
Iowa Public Television can be found in Iowa Outdoors
magazine, the Iowa DNR's premier resource for
conservation, education and recreation activities.
Subscription information can be found online at
iowadnr.gov.
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