Katy Trail State Park, Missouri: A Trail Review

The Katy Trail State Park is a popular biking trail in Missouri that covers 225 miles from St Charles to Clinton. The Katy Trail is built on the former railroad tracks of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT or Katy). The Katy Trail State Park contains a section of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The trail is also part of the American Discovery Trail and designated a Millennium Legacy Trail.

The Katy Trail State Park is a scenic trail that follows the Missouri River. The trail is open to hikers, joggers, and cyclists from sunrise to sunset all year around. To learn more about the state park, they have an informative website at www.katytraistatepark.com. Each trailhead also has an information board that contains maps of the trail.

We recently parked at the Weldon Springs Trailhead, which is conveniently located about five miles on Highway 94 from Interstate 40. The gravel parking lot holds about 30 vehicles. We biked west from Weldon Springs Trailhead to the August trailhead which is 10.3 miles (20.6 miles roundtrip). This part of the Katy Trail State Park is very scenic with the Missouri River in view for most of the trip. We crossed over two wooden bridges, one that we could even see fish in the water below.

The Katy Trail is perfect for beginner cyclists because the trail is very flat with no hills and only the occasional public road to cross. The 10.3 miles that we bicycled on was mostly shaded by trees. We passed several small farms and a couple of farm houses but overall the trail is mostly wooded. My favorite part of the trail is the first mile from the Weldon Springs Trailhead. The Missouri River flanks the trail on one side and high rock walls flanked the other side. The rocky bluffs even had a few small cave openings.

We passed two trailheads on our way to Augusta. The first trailhead at Defiance had a nice resting area for travelers. There was even a bicycle rental story that carried Ted Drewes Custard and bottled drinks. The back of the store had several picnic tables for customers. We stopped on our return for the nice refreshing custard.

The second trailhead was at Matson. The sign advertised water but all we saw was a bathroom and some benches at the information board. I am sure we could have explored the small town to find refreshments but we held out for Defiance, which seemed much nicer then Matson.

Augusta was another trailhead that caters to the bicyclists and other travelers along highway 94. The area is populated by wineries so there were several restaurants with outdoor seating and signs about wine tasting. We did actually bike past two wineries on the Katy Trail State Park.

There are two sections that you have to cross 94 which did concern me because traffic flies by. The crossings are clearly marked but cross traffic does not stop and usually doesn't even seem to slow down. I recommend for everyone to be careful and yield to oncoming cars.

I highly recommend the Katy Trail State Park for bikers and joggers. We are looking forward to bicycling another section of the trail with a goal of eventually riding the whole trail in different sections