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Decorah to Waukon the High Way

Decorah to Waukon the High Way is 28.0 miles of point-to-point riding through Winneshiek and Allamakee Counties in Iowa — Driftless Iowa, the Upper Iowa, the Yellow River country and the climbs out of the Mississippi. Moving time is about 42 minutes; allow 60 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 44 corners, 141° of turning per mile, 1,344 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-3Spirited · 1.57/mi
Distance
28.0 mi42 min riding
Corners
4461% sharp · Tight
Climbing
1,344 ft48 ft/mi · Steep
Shape
Point-to-pointHalf morning
Roads
Backroads100% county & local
Traffic
—no published counts
Open this route in the app

About this road

This “High Way” emphasizes ridge travel between Decorah and Waukon, the two county seats that share a name rooted in the Ho-Chunk leader Waukon Decorah. Higher and more open than the river-bottom routes, the roads deliver long views when the ridges align. Both towns keep strong local character and nineteenth-century streetscapes. The route is a good introduction to the upland side of Driftless Iowa before any descent into the deeper Upper Iowa valleys. The same cultural history sits on two related but distinct landforms; the roads make the difference tangible. Climbs are present but less continuous than on the river loops; the feeling is expansive rather than enclosed. Useful as a clarifying contrast to the more technical coulee routes, and as a practical connection between Decorah and Waukon. Open, clear, and easy to fit into a longer exploration.

How it rides

44 corners over 28.0 miles — 1.57 a mile, and 141° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 61% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,344 feet in total, 48 feet per mile, between 839 and 1,307 feet — 468 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 315 feet over 2.1 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.0%. By Driftless standards that is steep.

Surface, speed and traffic

80.6% paved — the rest is gravel or seal coat, so check the surface before you commit. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. No published traffic counts cover this route, so it carries no traffic figure rather than a borrowed one.

Where to stop

2 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 4 fuel, 11 food, 3 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 27.6 miles. Worth knowing before you set off if your tank is small.

Listed alphabetically, and chosen by us rather than rated by anybody. The order you reach them, and the mile each one sits at, are in the app.

Worth knowing

Turn-by-turn directions and the spoken guidance are in the app. Every figure on this page is measured from the route itself — corner counts and gradients from the road geometry, elevation from the national elevation dataset, traffic from the state transport departments where counts exist.

Nearby roads