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Katy Trail: Bluffs runs 49 miles from Boonville to North Jefferson, across the river from Jefferson City. It crosses the Missouri at Boonville, passes Old Franklin and New Franklin, then settles onto the river's north bank for the best known miles of the Katy: the stone-arched Rocheport tunnel, limestone bluffs rising straight from the trail edge, and the wetlands of Diana Bend and Eagle Bluffs. Rocheport, Huntsdale, McBaine, Easley, and Hartsburg break up the ride, and Cooper's Landing sits on the riverbank. The grade is rail flat on packed crushed limestone. West of Boonville the trail becomes Katy Trail: Prairie; east of North Jefferson it continues as Katy Trail: Hermann.
Katy Trail: Bluffs
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Katy Trail: Bluffs has about 103 to 140 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, birding, biking, and walking, with April, October, and November the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Katy Trail: Bluffs!
In half of past years, color along the Katy Trail: Bluffs peaks October 21 to November 1, typically around October 27. The trail has 29% deciduous coverage, with the majority being white oak, northern red oak, shagbark hickory, sugar maple, chinkapin oak, black oak, and black walnut.
An October 1986 Missouri River flood tore out the Katy's track between Sedalia and Machens, and the railroad chose not to rebuild. The corridor was far older than that flood. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, the Katy, ran its first train from Sedalia to Clinton in 1870, living on Texas cattle and farm traffic. In 1874 it bridged the Missouri at Boonville. In the 1890s its subsidiary, the Missouri, Kansas and Eastern, laid a new line down the Missouri River valley to St. Charles and Machens to reach St. Louis. After the washout the Katy asked to abandon almost 200 miles across Missouri. Missouri State Parks took the corridor under the rail banking amendment to the National Trails System Act, and Ted and Pat Jones gave 2.2 million dollars toward the purchase. Construction began in 1987, and the first section opened at Rocheport in 1990. Union Pacific donated the Sedalia to Clinton corridor in 1991. The Great Flood of 1993 damaged 75 of the trail's first 126 miles. The trail reached Sedalia in 1996, Clinton in 1999, and Machens in 2011. It is now 240 miles long, and in 2007 it became the second trail inducted into the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Hall of Fame. This segment starts at the Katy's only Missouri River crossing, the Boonville lift bridge, and follows the 1890s river line through the Rocheport tunnel to North Jefferson. Its Rocheport stretch opened first, in 1990.
MKT Nature and Fitness Trail
