Yellow River Oxbows features a floodplain forest around the meandering Yellow River and its oxbows and sloughs in central Juneau County.  A parking area is located on the west side of 17th Avenue midway between 28th Street and 30th Street just northwest of Buckhorn State Park.  From the parking area, a primitive trail leads toward the water but fades away as you get closer.  The natural area is better seen by canoe/kayak, which could be launched from a boat ramp just south of the intersection of 30th Street and 17th Avenue at the southeast corner of the natural area.

I parked in the gravel area off of 17th Avenue and followed the trail toward the sloughs and oxbows.  I then spent a good amount of time wandering the shoreline north and south in and out of the nooks and crannies of the floodplain forest.  Surrounding the parking area was a small prairie/barrens area with wild lupine, bird’s-foot violet, and hairy puccoon.  The oxbows and sloughs were picturesque, albeit difficult to explore with very soft, sandy edges and a prolific amount of downed trees and branches.  I explored as much as I could sans watercraft and resigned myself to returning again in the future.  As of yet, I have not returned, but with a kayak in my possession, I can look forward to a nice paddle here soon.

Oxbow

Wild Lupine

Oxbow

Oxbow

Dragonfly

Bird’s-foot Violet

More of my photos (and full-res) from Yellow River Oxbows can be viewed here.

400 more blog posts to go!  Well, actually a few more than that remain; counting SNA’s delisted since I started and a few SNA’s to be designated, the current total is 687, though hopefully, that will increase!

If you would like to help support this project, please consider a donation.  There are many SNA’s yet to visit and even more to revisit and I ultimately plan to put this together in the form of a book.  Thank you!

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