Trail repairs at Palisades-Kepler State Park should help hikers, first responders

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College freshman Lewis Page hit the trails at Palisades-Kepler State Park on a recent Monday to get in shape for the soccer season.

Five miles of up and down trails at the state park near Mount Vernon are perfect for trail runners and others who want to breathe hard and break a sweat — all while seeing magnificent scenery along the Cedar River.

“I’m working out and getting ready for the season,” Page said as he stretched after his 30-minute training run.

But those trails — eroded by use and water — can be a challenge when a hiker is injured and first responders must get to the person and, in some cases, transport them out on an ATV or a hand-held litter.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Friends of Palisades-Kepler last week started a project to repair park trails to improve footing for hikers and to ease access for emergency responders.

The first phase costs about $14,000. The friends group this month launched a $33,500 campaign to help fund the effort.

“Improvements are being made to get ahead of any of these incidents that might happen,” Palisades-Kepler Park Ranger Luke Wagner said.

Workers with Conservation Corps Iowa have started work on Cool Hollow Trail near the campground. First they used a landmover to smooth out rutted trails and then laid down Geogrid fabric to help keep new gravel in place. Laying crushed limestone on the widened trail will allow for the second part of the project, which is laying new steppingstones up to Cedar Cliff Trail.

The crew used a motorized wheelbarrow to haul in 60 limestone steps, each weighing 165 pounds. The plan was for workers to manually position each stone to create a staircase up Cedar Cliff.

“It’s a considerable feat to get them down there,” Wagner said of the steps.

The rest of Cedar Cliff trail will be repaired in 2024.

Supporting ‘the Pal’

Palisades-Kepler was established in 1922, but its size nearly doubled when Louis H. Kepler donated his estate to the park in 1928. The park has limestone structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s as well as Native American Indian mounds. An estimated 250,000 people visit the park each year.

“We don’t have a lake, but if you come out here in the summer and see someone with a backpack you can be sure they’re training for something,” said Gail Brown, president of the friends group, which formed in 2018 to support “the Pal.”

She’s met folks at Palisades-Kepler who are training to walk the Appalachian Trail and the Yukon Quest in Canada.

People also have suffered serious injury and death at the park.

Brian Jungen, 32, of Coralville, died May 22, 2020, after a fall while hiking on Cedar Cliff Trail. Four hikers came across Jungen near a bench, bleeding from cuts to his head, The Gazette reported. They were able to speak to him before he became unconscious, but Jungen was pronounced dead by first responders.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office investigated the July 13 apparent drowning of Zyah Thomas, 11, of Cedar Rapids. The girl reportedly went into the water and began to struggle, but by the time emergency responders arrived they could not find her in the water.

The DNR and Linn County searched the river several months ago when the water level was down but did not find her, Sheriff Brian Gardner said.

Jordan C. Allyn, 35, was rescued from the Cedar River at Palisades-Kepler in October 2019.

Emergency response

Wagner, who became the Palisades-Kepler ranger earlier this year, doesn’t live in the park like previous rangers.

That’s because the DNR asked rangers to move out of state-owned housing by the end of 2023 after the agency decided in 2021 it didn’t want to pay to update houses in 26 state parks. Rangers and park visitors have said they fear not having live-in rangers will delay emergency response.

Wagner said he’s talking with Linn County agencies, such as Secondary Roads, about being available to help during emergencies. Some rescue equipment has been positioned in the park rather than in Wagner’s vehicle or at his house, which is within the DNR’s requirement of rangers living 30 miles or less from the park.

“From an emergency response standpoint, we’re going through and reworking our emergency response plan to get everyone on the same page,” he said. “We’re adjusting.”

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com