indian cave state park

We went tent camping at Indian Cave the last weekend in October. The trees were absolutely gorgeous! Fall is a beautiful time here. Although we didn't get to hike any, it appears that there are many hiking trails in the park. They have many tent camping sites which all included a fire pit and many had a picnic table as well. There is one main tent camping area which has showers, bathrooms, and running water. Other pit toilets are available throughout the park. It appeared that there were two large areas for RV camping as well. The cave itself is not all that exciting, although it is fun to try and find the old Native American drawings in the stone. There's a great lookout that you can drive to which looks out over the Missouri River and has great views of the trees.

I always try to camp here at least one weekend a year! It is one of my favorites. There are so many attractions here I don't know where to begin; something for everyone for sure. The Missouri River runs along one side of the park, and the beginning of an ancient cave opening... Great bluff countryside and lookout spots. There is a museum when you first come into the park that I would recommend for the first trip there so you can see all the history of the area. One side of the park you can go to an area where they have working blacksmith, lye soap making, candle making, broom making, and a school house, general store and a cabin to see. Then there is a grave yard on the other side that is very interesting. Many trails to hike or ride on horse back. Every weekend the park has one attraction or another. They do black powder shoots, and Halloween celebrations for three weekends in October. There are a variety of campsites available. The only downside is they are a little pricey if you are from out of state, but they make up for that in resources. Must see!

Indian Cave State Park hosts a three weekend Halloween extravaganza. Decoration contest is something to behold. ' Pop up' potluck dinners and trick or treaters serve as appetizers for hayride and haunted cemetery. Make reservations early for this popular October celebration.

We spent the Labor Day weekend RV camping at Indian Cave State Park. The scenery and history is great. They had quite a few activities going on throughout the weekend including a fish fry, fireworks and living history exhibits, which included a Blacksmith, lye soap making and candle making. Horseback riding was available as well. Shower facilities were not only top notch, but free (yay Game and Parks and the Camp Hosts)! If you RV it, be sure to be guided by the pad length...they are accurate and parking is slim. Many of the RV sites are under complete tree cover, helping make the weather pleasant.

We really enjoyed the living history area and found the people to be friendly and helpful. The cave isn't particularly impressive but the park is beautifully kept and it makes for an enjoyable stopping place.

We were very dismayed to see the damage done to the cave by people who have written on this historic cave that has precious Native American carvings.

Went on an overnight hike/camp this weekend.Arrived a bit late in afternoon on Saturday, but surprisingly it was still mild out. Hiked/jogged from trail head 7 over to the Indian Caves (around trail head 11). Good sight to see. Glad it's protected now, with banisters and walkway. Hiked back a bit to trail head 9 and made camp at nearby campsite.Awoke at around 10pm to rain...Went back to sleep. Awoke at 3am to snow/sleet. Went back to sleep. Finally got up around 6am and made trek back to car.Trails overall in good shape with slight overgrowth (but really not bad). After a few sweeps through with larger crowds, most of the fallen leaves will be crushed/brushed aside.Campsites nicely spaced and plenty of open spots (for mid-March anyway). A bit on the pricy side though. Paid $5/day for car, then $8/campsite. Overall, I would return if the weather gets better. Good trip to get out of town for a while, although some may not like the drive (about 1.5hrs from Omaha metro), scenery is nice all the way down outside of Council Bluffs.

Visited on a warm Winter's day (45 degrees) last week. The main road down to the Winter closure point was in good shape, pretty snowy and a little icy after that. The gate was open due to some workmen down by the "cave" area, otherwise would not have had access. Couldn't really hike because the trails are iced over. We were able to make our way up the wooden stairs to see the petroglyphs and yes it is very disappointing how the graffiti has damaged the area, but we still saw some of the glyphs. We found a good spot by the side of the road and just hiked the main road. Not a soul there, tons of birds, especially woodpeckers. Cold clear sky and a beautiful sunset. Loved it.

Beautiful fall foliage! Rugged trails if you're not used to it. Great reenactments friendly people. Definitely worth the drive.

I live in Northeast Kansas and I'm always looking for a new adventure for my two dogs. Indian Cave State Park is about 75 miles away and the dogs love for us to take a day trip to go hiking in this beautiful state park. We love taking different tails and stopping for a doggie picnic. You can pick how much adventure (strenuous hike) or how little (leisurely hike). And being in the Midwest, you can also enjoy all four seasons.

We have visited this park numerous times since moving to Omaha in 2002. August 18th we decided to take a Sunday day trip with the dogs. The park is one of the few places in Nebraska to enjoy a wooded area with some elevation change. There was probably no more then a dozen vehicles in the whole park while we were there for about 7 hours. As others have noticed the trails and "maps" are poorly marked and maintained, but decent hiking. We saw no other hikers in 6-8 miles of hiking that afternoon. We saw and flushed dozens of turkeys and a juvenile coyote. Many spots to camp and open year-round. The major negative we encountered was hundreds of larval/nymph ticks ( seed ticks) which were all over our dogs after hiking. Use bug spray on yourself and have duct tape to remove ticks from dogs and be prepared to shower both yourselves and your dogs when you get home.

My husband and I came here down from Omaha to have a nice weekend in the woods. We planned on camping in our tent, building a camp fire, cooking our own food and hiking. My husband and I are both from areas of the country with great camping and hiking areas, so maybe our expectations were a bit high. We got to the park and quickly noticed that most of the people staying over night had very large RVs instead of tents. This is something we aren't used to. We even saw one RV with a portable dish network satellite outside his RV. Whatever happened to spending time away from technology in the woods! Overall our tent space and fire pit were nice. The bathroom facilities were well maintained. Our only issue with our camping site was that the RV next to us had a large party on Saturday night and our tent site was completely surrounded by 8-10 extra parked cars, not to mention the noise until around 10pm. Not exactly our idea of a quiet night in the woods. The hiking was horrible. My husband and I are athletic and good hikers. We wanted to hike about 12 miles the first day. We started our early walking on the road from our camping site to find trail #4. We quickly had problems. We had a lot of trouble finding trail #4 from the road. There are no clues from the road as to where trail #4 is. Once we found trail #4 and hiked it, it wasn't so bad. Some tall weeds to walk through here in there, but fairly well marked. We then proceeded to trail #6 which is where it got more interesting. Trail #6 was more overgrown and we had trouble finding where the trail was. At one point we got to a fork in the trail, one with a sign for trail 6 and caution tape around it, and another with no markings. We opted to go past the caution tape to what we thought was trail #6. Mistake. We ended up making a huge circle back to the start of trail #6. Even though we encountered another problem we forged on. We went from trail #6 to #8A to #9/10 (we couldnt tell which one we were on) to #11 to the indian caves. With these trails we encountered similar problems to what was mentioned above, poorly marked trails, forks in trails where we didnt know which way to go, and overgrown weeds. 8A was probably the best and well marked trail. When we came back we took a slightly different route. Luckily having seen many of the trail intersections before, we didnt get lost quite as many times. We did notice when we got back hundreds of ticks on our socks and legs. These were quite gross and annoying and most likely from hiking through the tall grass on the poorly maintained trails. We found out through later research that these were baby nymph ticks or "seed ticks." On Sunday my husband and I made the mistake of going back out on the poorly marked trails. We decided to take a shorter hike (advertised 3 miles) around the north end/ wetlands area of the park. The was trail #1. This time we found the trail quickly. Good sign right! We started on the trail and fell behind one of the horse back riding groups. This was fine, but just a bit slower and smellier than we were hoping for. We broke off from the horse back riding group around halfway when we opted to take the longer 3 mile route. What appeared to be 1L on a sign vs 1S. This is where we encountered major problems. About 1mile after the split we ended up in a dry stream bed with no clear direction to go. We tried to follow what looked like the trail, but this caused us to end up in some farmers field. Realizing we were mistaken we backtracked to where we thought we went wrong. At this point we saw red markers on trees marking what we thought was the rest of the loop. We followed the red flags along a very overgrown trail for what we think was between 2-4 miles. During this we became worried that we were lost and we called the park for help. They told us they had no idea where we were. We tried not to panic and kept following the red flags. These flags eventually led us in a large frustrating circle. We ended up mentally and physically exhausted back in the dry stream bed. After about 3-4 hours of frustrating hiking we backtracked our steps to the point where we left the horse riders and hiked out. Hiking in this park is not safe. If we had kids with us or if we got hurt there would have been no one to help us. The park rangers dont know their own hiking trails and it seems that they have not been maintained. I understand that funding is down, but unpassable trails should be marked as such. Keep 1 or 2 nice trails open and keep your hikers safe.

I have been going to this park for 30 plus years and feel it is one of the best parks in the State of Nebraska. With that being said, you have to factor in what I look for in a park. If you want to have nice cabins to rent, lodging with nice restaurant services, swimming, and an abundance of planned events for kids, then this is not your park. What you will experience is space….. with nature all around you. I am a RV camper and really like the spacious camp spots and the clean restroom/shower facilities. When I leave the city for a camping weekend, I prefer to leave the noise, crowds, and traffic behind and take in all the serene beauty that nature offers. There is a fair amount of historic things to observe at the park, along with hiking, horse riding, and various special events during the prime camping season. The staff is friendly and helpful. The one thing that was sad to watch over the last decade was how the funding cutbacks changed the park. I experienced this park in its early days and it was a pristine jewel that not a lot of people knew about. For those of you that have commented in reviews, on the poor conditions of some of the trails or that certain things might look like they are being neglected, remember that funding (and the lack there of) is directly responsible as the staff can only provide what the limits of their funds allow. It is disturbing to me reading comments like “Not worth going out of your way to visit” and a “Cave Park without a cave” only to find you taking pride in associates of yours defacing 1,500 year-old Petro glyphs with their initials. If you are looking for a cave that you can enter and walk into the caverns of the earth, then this is not your cave. I don’t know how deep of a cave it was when the Native Americans used it, but I have been told the cave entrance opening had to be reduced for safety reasons. It is appalling to me to see how the outside cave area has been tragically defaced over the years. I can only imagine what a cave that people could freely walk in to would look like, giving their urge to deface things, and the liabilities that would ensue from people of this character. Unfortunately we are all deprived of entering the cave because of those that need to be protected from their own stupidity. I know we live in a world with all kinds of electronic devices that are designed to “entertain” our youth, but I personally think it is a shame if they are not given the chance to see the beauty of nature and its tranquility, along side of all these devices. So I guess enjoyment of the park is left up to everyone’s individual taste; as well as beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

My first thought is that it's hard to find and not well marked (a funny thing to say about a 3,000-acre park!) I looked hard on I-29 in Iowa, which is just across the river, for a sign to let me know how to get there, and finally called Nebraska State Parks for directions. You have to go through Brownsville (where there are no signs!) south on Hwy. 67 (9 miles), east on Hwy. 64E (five miles.) However, once there, my mom and I were amazed at the size and scope of the area. There were only a few other visitors on a June Monday. We didn't camp, as we had only come to hike and see the cave. The one-lane road that traveled approximately 1/3 of the area was fantastic for prairie dwellers to see - very hilly and curvy with dense forest on both sides. We stopped at the Missouri River overlook, which was truly beautiful, and hiked trail #3, which was quite steep. We saw very little wildlife, no deer, and only a few small birds, but that could have been because of the time of day.Personally, I found the nature end of the park much more fascinating than the town (two buildings) and the park buildings and gift shop, which weren't even open during the week. Signage was weak - we couldn't find the half-breed cemetery, and one of the trails I tried to hike was heavily overgrown. I found the "closed" sign at the trail head on my return, heavily covered in foliage and practically invisible.The cave area, which isn't a cave but a wall of stone with an overhang, was heavily vandalized as others have mentioned. I saw only one actual cave drawing, since everything had been scratched over by modern day non-cave dwellers. It's a shame that people don't have more respect for our historical places! The stone itself and the walkway/steps to reach it were worth seeing.Please note that this is not wheelchair accessible, and it is quite a climb! It was easy to imagine native Americans finding a haven there. The river was just down the hill from the east-facing cliff, so they had protection from the elements as well as a forest for fuel and food. I took numerous photos of the cave area and other areas of the park, which can be seen at http://tammyhughbanks.zenfolio.com/p851926220In summary, this is a great place for a day trip - certainly a deep and vast forest with excellent hiking trails that can be challenging. There is access to the Missouri River with a boat ramp, bank areas for fishing or viewing, lots of picnic tables and tent camping areas, horseback rides for a reasonable price and even areas set aside for equine enthusiasts who wish to camp with their horses. I think it would be a fantastic place to visit during the fall colors! I would recommend the State of Nebraska advertise this place a little more - a hidden jewel on the prairie.

We're visiting our son who is stationed at Offutt AFB. My wife likes caves so she drove us 75 miles to Indian Cave State Park in Shubert, NE. The park is a typical state park with over 3,000 acres of grass and trees as well as a few excellent vistas of the swiftly flowing Missouri River. What was rather odd about it was for several hours we did not see a single other visitor. There were an appreciable number of workers and some evidence of people using the campgrounds but there were no cars whatsoever navigating the roads. I got the impression that I woke up the gatekeeper and we were the first visitors who paid our $5 admission yesterday. There was a deserted 19th century village with a one-room schoolhouse and an even smaller broom factory that is open only on weekends. There was a half-breed cemetery about a mile away but it was only reachable by a walking trail. We did start on a downhill trail for about half a mile but quickly went back up the hill when we might have seen a snake. Actually the only wildlife we saw was one deer and a lot of mosquitos. We finally got to the cave area and were half up about 90 well-constructed wooden steps when my wife wanted to run down and get our flashlight. I persuaded her to wait until we got until the top where we discovered that while the park contained a cave area, there were no caves. There were some 1,500-year-old pictographs but it was hard to see these with all the initials carved over them. One of the carvings was of our son's 55th Wing so it was nice to know that other airmen preceded us. It's a nice park but not worth going out of one's way to visit.