Carlisle Ready To Welcome More Bikers

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It’s now easier than ever to safely bike to a small town just outside the hustle and bustle of Des Moines. Carlisle is now within reach for cyclists, thanks to the new Karras-Kaul Connector Trail.

The City of Des Moines officially opened the three-mile-long trail in November, but with warmer weather, many cyclists may just now be discovering the trail for the first time. Count me among them!

I wanted to ride Karras-Kaul for myself, and earlier this month, I had the chance. I started at Easter Lake Park on Des Moines’ southeast side, hopped on the Easter Lake Spine Trail and headed south.

After about a mile, the Easter Lake Spine Trail becomes Karras-Kaul as a new underpass dips below E. Army Post Rd. Once I passed Army Post, I felt like I was really out in the country. The trail goes through farm fields and a couple of at-grade intersections as you gradually climb several hills.

South of E. Pine Ave., the trail turns east and eventually darts south at SE 38^th  St., which goes beneath the Hwy. 5/65 bypass.

Just beyond that underpass, I stopped to talk with Dennis Lenhart, who was taking a break from his ride. He too was exploring the trail for the first time.

“It’s nice concrete, nice and flat, no bumps. It’s good and hilly there for a while, but Iowa is rolling hills,” he told me.

The trail then follows County Line Rd. toward Carlisle and into Scotch Ridge Nature Park on the north edge of town. That’s where the new trail connects to the more established Carlisle Nature Trail, which opened more than five years ago.

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For a while, that was the end of the line for people in Carlisle wanting to ride north toward Des Moines. The opening of Karras-Kaul has changed that.

“We’ve waited for many years to have this occur,” Carlisle Chamber of Commerce executive director Shar Pardubsky told me during a phone call a few days before my ride. “And now it’s here, we’re hoping that we can get all of the people to our downtown.”

Before I made it downtown, I had to ride the Carlisle Nature Trail through the park, over the North River, and then up some killer hills. Well, they were killer for me.

The first hill went straight up for roughly a thousand years. I couldn’t do the whole thing, I’m a wimp. At the top of that hill, I gleefully rode downhill, past a picturesque pond and then encountered another big hill.

This one had a couple of switchbacks that made the trip up look even more menacing. No worries, I shot right up that thing! And by “shot right up,” I mean I once again walked my bike for a ways.

Once I reached the top of that hill, I was finally in Carlisle. The trail winds through parks and neighborhoods and eventually meets up with the Summerset Trail at the aquatic center. Take a left on the Summerset, and you’re on your way to downtown.

“Our businesses are here to welcome everybody,” Pardubsky said.

Just outside My Sister’s Place – a bar and grill – I met Sarah Carter and a friend of hers. Like me, they rode in from Easter Lake.

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“We’d heard it (the trail) had opened, so we just wanted to check it out, see where it led, how far it was to get here, and if there was anything once we did get there,” Carter told me.

Carter was also surprised by how many hills she encountered on the way, but said it was fun to discover a new destination.

“We ride so much that we kind of end up doing the same things, so it’s nice to go somewhere different,” she said.

Downtown Carlisle has a handful of places to eat and drink, but what might be the town’s best-known spot to grab a bite is actually on Highway 5, just off the Summerset Trail. Fiss’ (pronounced “fizz”) has been in business for more than thirty years and serves subs, salads, tacos, and most importantly during the summer – ice cream.

“Anderson Erickson is really good at their job and we just love selling their products to people,” said Fiss’ owner Matt Thiel.

He said cyclists have been a big part of their business for as long as the Summerset Trail has been open. Now with another trail linking Carlisle to Des Moines, a new group of cyclists can discover Fiss’ and Carlisle’s other small businesses.

“We’d just like to see it continue to get better all the time and I think it will. We get more bikers continuously,” Pardubsky said.

Help Rebuild The Bridge

It’s going to be a while before the Raccoon River Valley Trail “lighted bridge” east of Adel reopens after that destructive fire earlier this month. But now you can help keep the project on track by donating to the Dallas County Conservation Department’s fundraiser. Click here to get started! As a reminder, the county’s conservation director told me it’ll likely be a year before the bridge is fixed, and that’s only if everything goes well.