Slater to Yellow Banks Park Camping Bike Tour

It was about time to do another family bicycle tour and the Easter weekend was just perfect for that.  Most importantly the weather was great.  We decided to bike to Yellow Banks Park by Des Moines since the park sounded quite interesting and most of the ride will be on trails.  Now that the kids are bigger and commute daily to school regardless of wind and weather we decided not to take the tandems and instead let everyone ride their own bikes.

We started from Slater instead from our house, because we wanted to trim down the mileage a little.  Doing so reduced the ride by 10 miles each day making it an easy 35 miles each way. As stated earlier, most of the ride is on the High Trestle Trail.  Through Ankeny it becomes the Gay Lead Wilson Trail connector and then the southern most part of the Gay Lead Wilson Trail itself.  Unfortunately the last 5 miles are on the road with no shoulders.  Two up hills and one down hill part going to the park added a little challenge but the worse, part were the dangerous drivers.  Only one car bothered to slow down and not pass us while everyone else just speeded by regardless of oncoming traffic and lack of visibility.

"Yellow Banks Park features 12 primitive camping sites on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Des Moines River".  I couldn't describe the campsites better then their website.  The view from these camp sites are absolute gorgeous.  Of course we weren't the only ones to have the idea to go camping on Easter.  I think the camp ground was maxed out with us taking the last of the campsites on the bluff, right next to the cars.  The area is a big grass patch with each camp site having benches around a fire pit and a picnic table. So an extra tent would be easily accommodated if you arrive late on bike or foot.  All dependent though how nice the park rangers are about it.  A pit toilet is right next to the parking lot.  For water, showers etc you'll have to go to the nearby RV part.

We haven't done much exploring at the Yellow Banks Park.  I went to the Native American mound next to the camp site at sunset and sat there a while in the dark.  The stars in the clear sky were amazing and all the noise from insect and critter activity in the dry leaves was naturely creepy.

The next day we moved the huge black panniers that contained our sleeping mats and sleeping bags from our daughter's to our son's bicycle.  It turned out a bad idea as his rack didn't held the panniers well and came loose while going down the hill. He ended up crash stopping in the grass next to the road and was beat up pretty decently.  Even his front wheel even went out-of-true.  Luckily it wasn't so bad that he couldn't finish the ride or that his enjoyment of the trip darkened.

The rest of the trip was a breeze.  Literally with the tailwind.  The kids rode ahead sometimes loosing us slow folks.

Our planned route: https://www.komoot.com/tour/63012800/zoom
Actual recording on the way back: https://www.komoot.com/tour/63496467/zoom