NPS Photo

Yellow River Boardwalk Trail

Accessible Resources

The visitor center, museum, book sales outlet and auditorium are accessible to wheelchairs. In addition, a one-mile round trip boardwalk trail is wheelchair accessible.

Although most Indian mound groups involve hiking along relatively long and steep trails, three burial mounds are accessible directly beside the visitor center. Accommodation can be made to allow permanently disabled visitors to drive their personal vehicles along a gravel road to access a bluff-top bear shaped effigy mound.

Consult rangers at the information desk for other accessible options to the hiking trails.

NPS Photo

Yellow River Boardwalk Trail

Yellow River Boardwalk Trail

For thousands of years, local American Indians were sustained by the bounty of the Mississippi and Yellow River wetlands. From beavers to arrowhead plants to the local clay, invaluable materials that were very much a part of ancient Iowans’ everyday life were gathered from these wetlands.

The Yellow River Bridge Trail at Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is accessible to those with physical disabilities, allows visitors to explore one of these important wetland environments. Currently about 2 miles for a round-trip walk, the recycled plastic boardwalk and wood chip trail will eventually connect the visitor center to the South Unit and the Marching Bear Trail, and perhaps provide a trail into the Heritage Addition.

When you walk the boardwalk to the Yellow River, you are never entirely alone. Birders will enjoy the neotropical migrants and resident nesting birds that are frequently found along the boardwalk. Turtles, frogs, muskrats and other four-legged animals are also found in abundance here.