Brown's Woods
Carney Marsh
Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt
Chichaqua Valley Trail
Easter Lake Park
Engeldinger Marsh
Fort Des Moines Park
Gay Lea Wilson Trail
Great Western Trail
High Trestle Trail
Jester Park
Mally's Park
Sycamore Trail
Thomas Mitchell Park
Trestle to Trestle Trail
Yellow Banks Park
As an extra incentive, if you “find” all 16 geocaches you will be rewarded with a special collectable trackable Geocaching coin!
Only one special / collectable trackable coin will be given per household. Additional geocoins may be purchased at $10/coin for other family members completing the challenge. This special geocoin may not be purchased by the general public.
How is this accomplished?
Download your “Passport" HERE.
Take this Passport with you when you are seeking these caches.
Each of these 16 caches will contain a popsicle stick with a secret word embossed on them.
Use the enclosed crayons to create a rubbing of the secret word on your 'Passport' to prove that you have found this cache!
Once your Passport is complete, turn it into the Jester Park Office or by mail to claim your special coin.
Jester Park: N 41 46.777 W093 46.539
(11407 NW Jester Park Dr., Granger, IA 50109)
There is not an "end date" for this special Polk County Parks Geocaching Challenge. You have plenty of time to complete this fun and rewarding geocaching experience!
Easter Lake Park
The centerpiece of this beautiful park on the southside of Des Moines is its 172-acre lake. Five picnic shelters and three children’s playgrounds overlook the lake. A boat ramp and accessible fishing pier/dock provides access for anglers trying to catch the walleye, bass, and catfish stocked by the Conservation Board into the lake every year.
*The Beach and Boat Ramp will be closed in 2016 and 2017 during the lake restoration process for safety precautions.
The park opened in 1967 on the site of Polk County’s last operating coal mine. After the strip mine shut down in 1959, the area was considered as a possible landfill site. However, neighborhood leaders joined together to form the South Town Lake and Development Society and promote the use of the site as a park.
The Owens Covered Bridge is the only covered bridge in Polk County. It was originally built in 1878 over the old North River channel on a road from Martin’s Ferry to Winterset. In 1939, the road and the North River channel were relocated north of the covered bridge site leaving the old bridge without a road and river. In 1968, Polk County Conservation Board promised to restore and move the bridge, board by board, nearly eight miles to Easter Lake Park. The bridge is located on the southern lake shore near Shelter #1 and shelters a section of the Mark C. Ackelson Trail as it travels through it.
Summer hours are from 6:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.; winter hours are from sunrise to sunset.