Decorah, Iowa fall foliage

Decorah sits in Iowa’s Driftless Area, a corner of the Upper Midwest the last glaciers missed, so instead of flat farmland there are limestone bluffs, deep valleys, and cold, clear trout streams. The Upper Iowa River runs through town below wooded bluffs, and Palisades Park has overlooks above a bend in the river. On the edge of town, Dunning’s Spring pours out of the hillside and cascades down a mossy limestone bluff. The paved Trout Run Trail loops about 11 miles around the city, past the river, the bluffs, and open farm country.

Route 9 heads east from Decorah through rolling Driftless farm country to Lansing, on the Mississippi River, where Mount Hosmer Park sits on a bluff high above the river and its wooded islands. From there, the Great River Road follows the Mississippi south below wooded bluffs toward Effigy Mounds National Monument.