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It’s 45 minutes north of Des Moines
Flat farmland runs in every direction for miles around Boone County. Then you pull into Ledges State Park, and the ground drops out from under you.
Sandstone cliffs rise close to 100 feet above a narrow canyon floor, and a creek cuts right through the middle of it. Steep wooded trails climb the bluffs while a winding road follows the water below.
This is one of Iowa’s oldest parks, and it looks nothing like the rest of the state.
Wikimedia Commons/Carol VanHook
Ancient seas built these cliffs 300 million years ago
The sandstone under your feet started forming when shallow seas covered central Iowa about 300 million years ago. Layer by layer, the rock built up and hardened…