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The Prairie Spirit Trail runs 52 miles north to south across eastern Kansas farm country from Ottawa to Iola, through Princeton, Richmond, Garnett, Welda, Colony and Carlyle. It follows the old Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston rail grade, so the ride is nearly flat, with grades under one percent. The surface is compacted crushed limestone screenings between towns and asphalt inside Ottawa, Garnett and Iola. Most of the route is open to the sky, crossing pasture, cropland and pockets of tallgrass prairie, with tree cover mainly at the creek crossings. Trailheads come every five to eight miles. At Ottawa the trail meets the Flint Hills Trail, and at Iola the Southwind Rail Trail carries the corridor on to Humboldt.
Prairie Spirit Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Prairie Spirit Trail has about 82 to 136 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, running, e-biking, biking, birding, 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 Prairie Spirit Trail!
There is too little deciduous tree cover along the Prairie Spirit Trail to measure a peak color window. The trail has 6% deciduous coverage, with the majority being hackberry, Osage-orange, American elm, and black walnut.
The Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad ran its first train into Ottawa at the start of 1868, one day ahead of its deadline. It was chartered in 1858 as the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Fort Gibson, a plan by Lawrence businessmen and later Senator James Lane to build the first north-south railroad in Kansas. Track reached Garnett in 1869. The rails ran on through Iola, Chanute and Coffeyville in 1871. The LL&G went bankrupt in the late 1870s. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe bought the line and ran it under its own name from the early 1880s until the mid 1970s, when traffic faded. In 1990 the Santa Fe sold the corridor to the Kansas City Terminal Railway, which filed to abandon it the same year. The state wildlife and parks department claimed the Ottawa to Iola section for public use, and title passed to the state in 1992. The trail opened in three phases: Richmond through Garnett to Welda in 1996, Ottawa to Richmond in 1998, and Welda through Colony to Iola in 2008. A June 2007 flood washed out part of the Pottawatomie Creek bridge north of Garnett, and the bridge was rebuilt. On May 28, 2010, the trail became Prairie Spirit Trail State Park, the first rail-trail in the Kansas state park system. The Southwind Rail Trail extended the corridor south to Humboldt in 2013, and the trail use permit was dropped at the start of 2019.
Flint Hills TrailSouthwind Rail Trail
