DNR
Home PageTrails
Wakonda State Park has four hiking trails covering eight miles of scenic views featuring native sand prairies, lakes and wildlife. The trails are limited to foot and bicycle traffic. All of the trails are easy to negotiate.
Campground Trail (.3 miles) takes you from the campground to the trail heads at the main parking lot. Be on the lookout during the growing season for prairie and forest animals and plants, including rare tiger beetles and not-so-rare poison ivy. Both are native to the sand prairie and dry woodland habitat.
Jasper Lake Trail (2.1 miles) encircles Jasper Lake and a wetland complex, as well as connects to Agate Lake Trail. Here you may see good fishing opportunities, waterfowl and signs of various wetland animals, including beaver, muskrats and raccoons.
Agate Lake Trail (3.5 miles) encircles
the park's largest man-made lake, and connects to both of the
other hiking trails. Look for waterfowl, evidence of prairie
restoration (such as controlled burning) and signs of the
extensive gravel dredging operation before it became a park.
Note: During waterfowl migration,
Agate Lake is closed to boating to allow geese and ducks to
rest in relative safety. This trail may also be closed.
Peninsula Trail (one mile) is a loop trail, taking hikers through the sand prairie itself. Look for all manner of insect and bird life during summer; watch overhead for migrating waterfowl in spring and fall. This sparse grassland is as important to small prairie songbirds as the wetlands are to migrating waterfowl.
