Brents Trail is a roughly 11 mile long trail in Western Iowa’s Loess Hills State Forest. I’ve seen this trail described as one of the toughest hikes in Iowa. This reputation is well-deserved, as hikers encounter route finding challenges, overgrowth, and an elevation gain/loss exceeding 2,000 feet.

Me and 2 of my buddies, Josh and Darian, met up at the Murray Hill Scenic Overlook in early October 2023 to spend a night out on the trail together before I started making my way down to Florida for my first season working out in the Everglades. I had hiked the trail before the previous fall solo so we had a bit of an idea of the milage we wanted to get done each day and where we’d set up camp and cache our water.

The recommended way to hike this trail is NOBO (south to north). This leaves you finishing up the hike with a great view at the Murray Hill Overlook. The southern terminus is located down a gravel access road next to a field of row crop. There’s a small grass parking area next to a gate with the first of many rust colored leaf markers letting you know that you are on Brents Trail.

As you follow the trail markers (which are numerous in this area) you eventually make it up to the top of the first of many hills along the trail. You are rewarded with the first and only bench on the trail until you reach the northern terminus/overlook.

After the first bench, theres a short gravel road walk and some more up/downs until you get to another real nice spot to take in the view along the trail before you get into the thick of it. We spent some time here climbing trees and having a few snacks before continuing down the trail.

Trail markers are your saving grace in the section after this viewpoint. Also be on the lookout for barbed wire. I ripped the top of my trail runners tripping on a ground level barbed wire fence remnant while bushwhacking the next section. Eventually, the trail opens up wide and becomes a mowed trail along the edge of a field.

After walking along the fields for a while, you’re back at it climbing up hills and eventually come to the trail junction where the Gleason-Hubel wildlife trails meet up with Brents Trail.

Here in the central section, the trail is a bit more obvious in wear, but the markers are much less frequent than in the southern section. On the new southern addition, markers are everywhere so you might think you’ve taken a wrong turn a few times as you hike on without a marker for several minutes. Be assured, there’s probably one right around the corner. Next, you’ll come to a dirt road. The dirt road sections are oddly some of my favorite parts of the trail, as there is rarely any traffic and walking along the dirt walls has a super cool feel to it after tredging through the weeds.

Keep lookout for the markers on the right directing you to turn off of the dirt road and continue along the trail, they’re easy to miss. After you leave the dirt road, you are rewarded with some nice views back on the ridgeline of the hills.

Eventually, you come to the only source of water from what I could tell along the trail in the fall, a small cow pond on the west side of the trail. This is also as you are getting to 138th trail- a gravel road where you will have a short road walk to the east until you come to a small gravel parking lot. This is a great place to stash a water cache before you begin your hike as you only have one more hill to climb before you reach a small clearing in some pines that makes a decent place to spend the night along the trail. Unfortunately, Darian had met his match by this time on the trail, and ended up hiking solo along the gravel road to the blacktop and hitching a ride back to his car at the northern terminus. The camping area is nestled just up the next hill from the parking area, in a small patch of pines. Although you are on a hill, we were able to find a few small flat spots to pitch a couple of tents. The night concluded with a random assortment of snacks and pasta type dishes, and a small bottle of Jager I brought along for the night.

This spot also must be a favorite with the local crows, as we were awoken by an obnoxious amount of ’em in the morning. It was definitely a funny experience and a highlight from our trip.

If you’re only able to do a few miles of the trail, everything north of 138th trail is the biggest bang for your buck portion of Brents Trail. Great views atop the ridgeline for a good portion of the trail. Maybe we just appreciated it more due to the tough day of hiking prior. This is where (to our surprise) we also ran into another backpacker, who was doing the trail SOBO (north to south). She had left her bike at the south trailhead and was planning on peddling back to her car at the end of the hike. We were fortunate to have the luxury of having multiple vehicles, but a bike beats walking several miles of gravel to get back to the start- which is what I did on my first hike of the trail the year prior. I had planned on hitchhiking but I didn’t have a single car drive by during my few hours of walking. Next was a second dirt road walk section of the trail, although this dirt road is classified as a “C” service road and didn’t look like anyone had tried driving down it in many years. This was another highlight of the trip.

After you come off the level c dirt road, you walk through an old cemetery and continue up another steep hill with great views.

What goes up must come down. Following this beautiful section atop the ridge we descended once again and were along a blacktop road.. the end is near! This section of the trail also passes through marked private property, please keep the trail nice!

Finally, its on to the final climb. There’s a tight squeeze between a fence and a post that you may have to remove your backpack for before making it up to the Murray Hill Scenic Overlook. There is some informational signage, a bench, a selfie stand, and of course a great view of pretty much the same thing we had been seeing for the duration of the second days hike.

Brents Trail is a great way to experience the Loess Hills in a single day or an overnight trip. Both times I’ve done the trail I’ve done it as an overnight and the sunrises/sunsets out in Western Iowa over the hills are top tier.