RockneCAST

Driftless Travels - Marching Bears Hike and McGregor, Iowa (#244, 10 Sept. 2024)

It's fall in the Upper Midwest! I just finished hike that I have been wanting to do for a while, the Marching Bear trial near the Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is located just about 2 miles north of McGregor, Iowa.

The Marching Bears hike is about 1/4 mile south of the visitors center. I learned about it through the work of Lori Erickson, a travel writer who featured Marching Bears in her book called Every Step is Home: A Spiritual Geography from Appalachia to Alaska.

After your hike, you should visit McGregor, Iowa a short trip south from the Marching Bears trail head. McGregor has two awesome book stores: Paper Moon and Rivertown Fine Books. It also has a whole bowl of hoppy awesomeness called Old Man River Restaurant and Brewery. Check the hours before you go!

Broadcast on:: 10 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

What's up dudes! This is my second episode of my Driftless Travels series. About four or five months ago, I did one on Norman Borlach and it totally bombed, but that's okay. I'm going to do a second one on McGregor, Iowa, and a wonderful hike at the Marching Bears Effigy Complex, just south of the Effigy Mounds National Monument, north of Marquette, Iowa. Dudes, if you're looking for something to do this weekend and you're close to the Driftless region or you want to make a weekend of this particular region, you got to check out McGregor, Iowa, and the Effigy Mounds National Complex. So dudes, for this episode of the Rachnicast, I'm going to explain to you what the Effigy Mounds National Monument is. I'm going to give you a secret recommendation as to this really cool hike called the Marching Bears Hike, which is not part of the immediate visitor center hike that you can do. Then we're going to cover a little bit of how freaking awesome McGregor, Iowa is, and I'm going to give you two bookshops that you can go to and an awesome brew pub. So you can get your buzz going after the hike. So first off, let's talk a little bit about Effigy Mounds. What the hell are they? Well, they're kind of like these Indian burial mounds outside of McGregor, Iowa that are, what's an Effigy? An Effigy is something that is in the shape of like a bear or a bird. And when you see it, it's kind of, you kind of got to use your imagination because you have their kind of cool in the sense of, you know, they're like these mounds that are built by this indigenous mile building culture about a thousand years ago. But it's mainly just kind of really cool because you really realize that we sit on top of all these other civilizations that came before us. And I remember when I was a kid, he would always go to Effigy Mounds like on a field trip. I swear to God, we did it like every year. And I was like, eh, you know, it's like an opportunity to like have some cold lunch, get out of school, ride those damn uncomfortable school buses and do a little tiny hike with your classmates. It only took me until I was older till I realized how freaking cool this Effigy Mounds complex is. And so let me discover and let me tell me discover, let me tell you how I discovered this marching bears hike that I did not even know about. And so first off, one thing I do want to do is I want to like give you a little bit of what the hell is the driftless region anyway. Well, basically the the last glacier didn't cover this part of the upper Midwest. And so it basically is an area with tons of different streams and valleys and all sorts of like really cool natural geographic features that you wouldn't expect to see like these little mountains and cliffs. And it's just really, really cool. There's a lot of good vibe people in the driftless region. But so smack dab in the middle of this is this Effigy Mounds national monument. It's the only national monument that Iowa has. And it really is worth the visit. You can do it in really a couple different ways. One, you can just go to the visitor center and kind of check it out. The visitor center kind of sucks. Yeah, I don't think it's been updated since like 1985. But there are some good books. There's a little description, a little background of what the mountain builders were. And there's a hike that you can do adjacent to the visitor center. That's pretty cool. Not too strenuous, but you know, you definitely need to have your hike and choose. There's some nice overlooks. And of course, you can see the mountains. But last, I think it was about a year ago, I was reading my local driftless region newspaper. And I saw a author that was going to speak at the Effigy Mounds national monument. It was actually during the winter time. This author was named Lori Erickson. She is from my hometown of Decora. She also went to my alma mater, Luther College. And she's this really awesome travel writer. And she was featuring a reading from her recent book called Every Step Is Home, A Spiritual Geography from Appalachia to Alaska. And so essentially what she did is a really cool travel concept. She went to all of these various spaces throughout the United States that had a spiritual component to it. And then she went to those spaces and elaborated on her experience in those spaces. Related to Effigy Mounds, she didn't go to the regular mountain complex, which is right near the visitor center. But she went to marching bears. Where is marching bears? Well, you got to kind of know about marching bears. It's kind of hard. It's not part of the main complex. It's about probably half a mile to the south, maybe even of course, it's not very far south. And you have to go to this little parking lot right across the railroad tracks to actually access the marching bears monument. Now the hike itself is pretty as kind of strenuous, like you start and it's really steep. And so once you go into the hike, the hike itself, it starts off and it's kind of steep. But then once you get to the top, it's not really that bad. And it's pretty moderate from there. But it's definitely the type of hike that you're going to want to wear some really good walking shoes and make sure that you have enough water, electrolytes, and maybe a short snack. This is a situation where I had not done it for a long time and I finally did it last weekend. And it was freaking awesome. Now, the hike itself is just, I think, really more than anything else. It's just a really good sample of these beautiful cathedral-like deciduous forests that we have here in the upper Midwest. And this is a case where I think that the hike itself is probably better than the destination and I'll share with you why. So we did this hike, my partner and I, and we really loved it. It was really beautiful. And we got a really good workout, but this is like a visual feast. You can see all these oaks, maples, all this wildlife. I remember these little prairie meadows that you can see and this sun-dappled deciduous forest. It's just gorgeous. And pretty much because most people are lazy, you're probably not going to see a soul while you're on this hike. You're probably going to be the only one that actually does it. When we went on this hike, it was two weekends ago, we actually saw two other couples and we're like, "Oh my God, we actually saw someone else." We've done a, basically when you get up to the top of the hill, you can go to the right and see some mounds, which is a little bit shorter and there's a nice little overwork, or you can go to the left, which I believe is south. And of course, if you go to the effigy mounds visitor center, you can see and get a map of where you need to go for purposes of the hike. And once you get onto the hike, it's basically on top of like a little gator trail. It's a pretty wide path. You don't have to worry about getting scratched by any weeds or anything like that or getting poison ivy. You should probably get some good hiking pants though to do it and it was just beautiful. But once we've actually got there, once we actually got to the actual destination, where all the mounds were, it was really cool. But there weren't a lot of interpretive signs there. So you kind of had to use your imagination and you could kind of see the mounds. They're kind of like these, they're barely elevated mounds. So these indigenous people that made these mounds, they did not want to build high mounds. So you kind of have to squint a little bit to see them. I mean, you can see them. There's like 10 different mounds. And essentially what the groundskeepers do is they mow and then they let the mounds, like the grass and the mouths grow a little bit more, so you can see them more clearly. The opening itself, it's just kind of this. It is kind of a beautiful space though. So if you want to hike up there and have a picnic or something like that, there's no tables. I think there might be a bench or two. There's no interpretive signs, which I think is something that the effigy mellows national monument people. I'm like, come on people. You got to have some interpretive signs you can explain. It's kind of what's going on. It reminded me quite frankly, if any of you ever been to this Shiloh Civil War battlefield, it reminded me a lot of like that type of layout where you have these beautiful grassy openings amidst the forest. So I have expected to see some historian talking about a civil war battle or something, even though there weren't no civil war battles in Iowa. But yeah, it was a beautiful space. And so after this about and the entire hike takes about two hours total, it is relatively strenuous. So you're definitely going to get a good workout in, but it is just going to be a visual feast. And there's no better medicine than getting out in nature. Now is the time to do this hike because the next right now it is September 10th week. I'm going to have about, there's about a month of just absolutely magical, majestic weather that we get here in the upper Midwest, coupled with the beautiful trees. So now is the time to do it. So if you're looking for something fun to do, do the marching bear hike at effigy melons in the Driftless region in Northeast Iowa, and it's just north of Marquette, Iowa, and it's bigger twin McGregor, Iowa. And you will really have a fun time. The hike itself is about two hours. It can also spend some time if you have to go to the bathroom at effigy melons visitor center. The visitor center itself does not have like any snacks or drinks or anything like that, but it's right north of Marquette. And there's a quick trip there. So you can get some, you can get some drinks and snacks and stuff like that if you want to. And then of course it's also right across the river from Prairie to Sheen, Wisconsin. So if you need to kind of fill up and plan your agenda in terms of the picnic, you can also do that there. The book itself, I got about halfway through every step is home. It was a really good book. I just took me on the books that I want to read, but I totally recommend buying Lori Erickson's book, Every Step Is Home, A Spiritual Geography from Appalachia to Alaska. She is a really brilliant travel writer. And she's someone who when you read about where you go, you always learn a lot about the culture. So I totally recommend buying this book. Probably not going to have time to read it before you go to the Marching Bears hike. But you know, hopefully you don't only have to do it this next month. I mean, you could do it in the springtime. You're definitely not going to do it when it's rainy because it could be really muddy. And the opening part of the hike is really steep. It's not like a cliff, but it's definitely if it were kind of muddy, it would be kind of tough to actually do. So I don't recommend you doing that. After you do the hike itself, I want to recommend that you go to McGregor, Iowa. And I could have done a standalone podcast on McGregor. McGregor is a river town. It's right adjacent to Marquette. And of the two, I'd say McGregor is way better. Marquette is closer to the casino. And so they have a few things going on there. But McGregor is way better. McGregor itself, I remember growing up, I thought, Oh, God, it's McGregor going to be any good. It's just going to be one of those done people or towns. There are a few old buildings that are kind of going to be. But the rest of it is absolutely gorgeous. You know, Elon Musk has like $200 billion. I want to do a podcast on if I had a billion, what I would do. Well, one of the things that I would do is I would continue to renovate little towns and little tiny businesses like McGregor, Iowa. So I'm going to give you because it is freaking awesome. There's still some places I haven't been there. But see, after you do your marching bear hike, totally recommend going to the Old Man River Brewery. It is a restaurant, a brew pub. They have really good home brewed beer. They have this awesome IPA. And I surprisingly have never seen this, where they have the hop floating in the brew. It's freaking awesome. It's so good. I usually have like one or two when I go there. And it has a really good quality like brew pub type food. So it's totally worth it going there. After you've gotten your burger, you've done your hike at marching bear, you've had an IPA, then totally go to the Paper Moon bookstore. And I was in Iowa City for several years and they had this place called Prairie Lights. Probably not as good a selection of Prairie Lights, but it has a ton of new up-to-date book selections. So, you know, I just did a recent book review of the book rest when I got that at the Paper Moon. My daughter has bought some really cool science-related books at the Paper Moon, but it's not just a bookstore. They have a great top section for kids. And then on the first floor, they have a ton of different types of like books you can get, like how to make cocktails. They have the obligatory scented soaps that you can get. And they have these very friendly owners and they even have a black cat that's just kind of really cool. It just kind of hangs out at this place. It's air-conditioned. So if it's a hot day, you don't have to worry about being all musty. But it is totally awesome. It is a legit bookstore. The other thing that I really like about it is that it has a pretty good regional book selection. So there was one book that I did not get that I think I want to learn more about is the War of 1812 in Prairie du Chien. We don't have a lot of wars that we have around this region, at least we haven't. We don't have them in the future, but in the past, we really didn't have a lot. So there's all sorts of books that you can get if you really want to learn about regional driftless region history, the people, the places, the things to do, go to the Paper Moon bookstore. It is so awesome. And in addition to the Paper Moon bookstore, there's another type of bookstore there. It's called Rivertown Find Books. And this is more of a traditional collector's unique used bookstore. The only thing that I found annoying about this book is you can get all sorts of valuable books and ordinary just used books. Very well run. It's the type of place as an old fashion cash register. I think I didn't like it. It's one of the few places that I've seen where some of the books they cover with like a belt of plastic on it, which kind of is kind of annoying. So I think that they do it to try to protect the spine. But I'm like, come on. It's a used bookstore. I'm not going to not buy the books because it has a little bit of a crinkle spine as people are trying to browse. So that was kind of annoying, but the prices are pretty reasonable. The guy totally knows his books and there's all sorts of books that you can get there. So you can easily spend a day in the McGregor. I think you can spend a day or two. There's a ton of stuff to see around there. But those are the things that I would recommend is to do the marching bear hike, self of effigy males, and to check out McGregor. And especially check out McGregor during the fall, during the peak, the lead season. It is absolutely gorgeous. And the hikes around there are freaking awesome. So that is this episode of the second episode of Driffle's Travels, marching bear and McGregor. My first one was on Norman Borlaug, and it totally bomb. So I have no idea whether this one's going to bomb two. Eventually, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull off second, spin off some podcasts where I do one only on travel, where I do one only on lawyer wellness. But right now, everything comes under the umbrella of the rocky cast because I am Rakani Cole. And this is my podcast. And that's how I'm doing it now. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Totally one, totally good part of well-being is to travel. So check out marching bear in the McGregor area and keep yourself an IPA from the Old Man River and brewery in McGregor. It's freaking awesome. So that's it, dudes. If you've listened this far, give me an email at rackingcast@gmail.com. Continue to give me positive reviews on Apple Spotify and all places where podcasts are heard. And that's it for this episode of the Racking Cast. Until next time, you and I see each other on the Racking Cast.