Tall Pines Trail

The Tall Pines Trail winds through the loess bluffs above the Platte River at Platte River State Park, traversing a pine forest unusual for eastern Nebraska and providing elevated views across one of the continent's most significant wildlife migration corridors. The park's signature plantation pines, planted decades ago for erosion control and now mature enough to feel like true forest, tower over a winding path that climbs the steep loess bluffs in a series of switchbacks before leveling onto the plateau above. From the ridge, the broad, braided channel of the Platte River is visible winding through its wide, shallow valley below.

The trail is most extraordinary during mid-February through late March when the Platte River corridor hosts the largest concentration of migratory sandhill cranes in the world, with peak counts exceeding 500,000 birds roosting on the river sandbars below the park's overlooks on a single night. The sound of half a million cranes calling at dusk is one of the great wildlife spectacles of North America, and the Tall Pines Trail provides an elevated perspective above the migration that complements the river-level viewing offered elsewhere in the corridor. The park's loess bluffs are among the most dramatic examples of wind-deposited glacial-era sediment in eastern Nebraska, and the abrupt terrain change from river valley to bluff top creates the diverse habitat mosaic that makes the park a birding destination throughout the year.