City: St. Louis, MO

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (800) 334-6946

Description: Katy Trail State Park offers something for almost everyone, especially bicyclists, hikers, nature lovers, and history buffs. This park is built on the former corridor of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad—better known as “the Katy”—and when the railroad shut down operation of the St. Charles County to Pettis County route in 1986, the state created a long-distance hiking and bicycling trail that runs almost 200 miles across Missouri. The scenic trail closely follows the route of the Missouri River and travels through dense forests, wetlands, deep valleys, remnant prairies, open pastureland, and gently rolling farm fields. In the spring the trail is brightened with flowering dogwood and redbud, and in the fall the trail comes alive with the rich reds and oranges of sugar maple, sumac, and bittersweet trees. There’s plenty of winged wildlife on hand as well, including chickadees, nuthatches, robins, orioles, and woodpeckers, along with red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, and even bald eagles in the winter months. Because of its location along the Missouri River flyway, the trail hosts migrating birds and waterfowl such as great blue herons, sandpipers, Canada geese, and belted kingfishers.