7 Iowa Landscapes That Look Nothing Like the Flat Cornfield Picture

Iowa’s reputation is flat fields as far as you can see.

But locals know the state has more going on than that.

These are some of the places that show a different side.

1. Loess Hills

In westernmost Iowa, the Loess Hills rise 200 feet above the flat plains, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

You’d have to go to Shaanxi, China, to find loess layers as deep and extensive.

The hills’ western boundary is very abrupt.

Steeply pitched, prairie-covered ridges and wooded slopes stand apart from the flat cultivated fields of the Missouri River valley floor.

Along the narrow ridge crests, peaks alternate with saddles.

Numerous shorter sidespurs branch off the main ridges, and the steeper slopes are often scored with a series of stair-like steps.

A dense network of drainageways forms closed-in hollows, narrow ravines and steep-sided gullies.

If you climb to a ridgetop summit, you overlook the boundary between the hills and the valley floor.

The steep ground has tended to keep farming away, and sizable tracts of original prairie remain.

2. Driftless Area

The Driftless Area is the name long given to the eastern half of northeastern Iowa’s Paleozoic Plateau.

The plateau’s deeply carved terrain is so unlike the rest of the state that the contrast is unmistakable.

If you cross into the plateau, the land plunges from gently rolling ground into deeply carved, high-relief terrain.

You can see that change clearly along a line linking West Union, Fayette, Strawberry Point, Edgewood, Colesburg and Peosta.

Many deep, narrow valleys there hold cool, fast-flowing streams.

Limestone, dolomite and sandstone stand out as cliffs, pinnacles, ledges and bluffs high on the landscape.

Waterfalls and rapids break the stream flow along the valley floors.

In no other region of the state does bedrock control the shape of the land surface so completely, the survey says.

Backbone State Park has a narrow, steep ridge of rock that towers over a deeply cut loop of the Maquoketa River.

That ridge, the Devil’s Backbone, forms the highest point in northeast Iowa.

3. Mississippi River Bluffs

The Mississippi River bluffs at Pikes Peak State Park include a 500-foot bluff.

From the top, you can see where the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers meet.

The Iowa Geological Survey says the gorge of the Mississippi is one of the most prominent landforms in the central United States.

If you hike the four-mile trail to Point Ann, you look out over the town of McGregor and the Mississippi River.

There’s also a half-mile walk to Bridal Veil Falls.

4. Iowa Great Lakes

Iowa Geological Survey researchers say the glacier left the Iowa Great Lakes area a hummocky landscape of many small rounded knolls and kettle-like marshy depressions.

Knob-and-kettle terrain is particularly prominent in Dickinson County, and kettles are steep-sided, bowl-shaped depressions that dimple the land surface.

If you’re looking for the deep lake in all of that, it’s West Okoboji.

If you check the numbers, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources lists it at 3,847 acres in Dickinson County, with a maximum depth of 138.9 feet in 2014.

5. Pilot Knob

Pilot Knob is an isolated, cone-shaped hill that rises 250 feet above the surrounding terrain, according to the Iowa Geological Survey.

You can easily see it along Highway 9 across southern Winnebago County.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says you can stand atop the park's observation tower on Pilot Knob, which dates to the Civilian Conservation Corps era.

Pilot Knob is an excellent example of a kame, an isolated, roughly conical hill of water-transported sand and gravel.

Deadman's Lake, a 4-acre floating sphagnum bog in the park, is the only one of its kind in Iowa, the department says.

6. Ledges State Park

Ledges State Park has sandstone ledges rising 100 feet above the Des Moines River, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The Iowa Geological Survey says the park's terrain is quite unusual for where it sits.

If you follow the four-mile trail system, you wind through steep slopes and reach views of Pea's Creek canyon.

You can streamwalk Pea's Creek along Canyon Road, and the creek is typically ankle deep.

7. Gitchie Manitou

Gitchie Manitou State Preserve protects low ridges of colorful outcrops in the northwest corner of Lyon County, the Iowa Geological Survey says.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources describes the rock as smooth, wind-polished, pink-colored Sioux Quartzite.

You walk northwest about a half mile along an access lane to reach the natural part of the preserve.

A prairie grows among the outcrops, with over 130 species of plants.

Once you reach it, you also find Jasper Pool, a water-filled quarry, and a narrow floodplain along the Big Sioux River.

Highest and Lowest Points

Hawkeye Point used to be farmland, Iowa PBS says, so it wasn't easily recognizable as the high point.

The Iowa Geological Survey describes the spot as a knobby ridge of glacial drift about four miles northeast of Sibley in Osceola County.

If you want the numbers, the U.S. Geological Survey lists Hawkeye Point at 1,670 feet.

The lowest point is the Mississippi River in Lee County, at 480 feet.