Raccoon River Park

I am an Arizona Desert Rat who grew up in Iowa. I am visiting the beautiful small town of Norwalk, Iowa and we have been fishing at Blue Heron Lake in Raccoon River Park. What an incredible job you've done West Des Moines! This place has it all! Swimming beach, boat launch, kayak and canoe rentals and a very nice wheelchair accessible fishing pier! We have been enjoying this place so much! Ok the kids and the girls are catching all the fish (I am Worm Boy and take the fish off the hook haha) Catch and release! I cannot say enough nice things about Raccoon River Park!

Beautiful family friendly park with water, trails, playground, and ball fields. Woderful atmosphere for just you or the entire family!

Raccoon River is a lovely park and a beautiful place to watch the sun rise against the backdrop of Blue Heron Lake. From here you'll see the downtown Des Moines skyline and you can watch the red-eye flights take off.

If you're unobtrusive, you might run across a deer while you're here; I saw one that promptly snorted at me and high-tailed it off in the other direction ;-)

There are a plethora of enjoyable options when you come here; you can jog or walk around the lake (there's a three-mile loop trail); there's also a large playground with a splash pad that kids seem to love, a beach for swimming in the summer, softball fields and soccer fields.

There's also a dog park!

This park has four things going for it:

1) The parking lot - this is some of the smoothest, most buttery concrete ever. If you like skateboarding, this is a niiiiiiiiiice spot. There's tons and tons of room, you can take it up, down, around and get some good inertia, no cracks, rocks or sharp turns.

2) The big pond - when it's hot outside my kids like to play in the water (yes, I know it's probably filthy), and it's a nice walk-around too.

3) The perpetual centripetal motion whirlygig - This thing is no joke. I got spun on a it for a hot minute and had a hilarious time trying to walk like the sober person I am. A silly toy, but tons of fun.

4) The zip rail - I will never get too old for these. Fight me for it.

Raccoon River Park is a great place to recreate. It brings the beauty of the great outdoors to Des Moines. It has a huge lake, lots of streams, a dog park, softball fields, and forest trails.

It's a great place to have a picnic or just enjoy a beautiful sunset (see picture). I enjoy relaxing here and enjoying the outdoors whenever in Iowa. It's great for runs or family excursions. It's well-maintained. I love this place!

Great dog park with friendly people. Plenty of room for large dogs to roam (and lose their owners). Make sure your dog has current WDM tags. Bring water!

What a versatile park.
From a dog park, baseball field, playground, shelters, nature center, trails, fishing, canoe, beach and so much more.

Visiting for a birthday party at one of the shelters. It's mid October and finally starting to cool off. The rain held off enough for the wasps/bees to invade the party and all the food.
Lots of tables at the shelter. Just a short walk to the nature center and short walk to the giant playground.
Lots for kids and big kids alike to play on.
I've been here a few times for weddings, runs, parties and such.
I recommend visiting.

You can rent kayaks here during season, it's a great park with a decent beach area, playground, large dog park and some of it is paved (in case you're looking for somewhere to take a stroller)

The dog park here is amazing, and the lake is perfect with the paths around it. This would be a great place to have a family picnic, fly a kite, go for a bike ride, and more. It's clean and family friendly. My golden retriever loved swimming in the lake and running around the three different large dog areas. This is our new favorite park in the Des Moines area!

This park has so much to offer. Walking trails. A dog park. A path around the lake. A boat ramp. They are building a boat house and you can rent boats soon. It has a playground, softball fields, an ice skating rink, Station where you can rent a bike. It has an art sculpture that is interesting. How does one get approved for their art projects? Due to snow we didn't walk around the lake. The trails that were open had plenty of trash cans. The parking lot was cleared pretty good. IT was a 50 degree day in January in Iowa. So the park was packed. The dog park was really full, so we opted to just walk around. I've walked the path around the lake before and it's really nice. Not enough trash cans, especially if you are dragging dog poop all over. This really bothers me, you expect me to clean up my dog poop, but yet not many trash cans along the trail. Clearly others feel the same way because the trail edge is covered in dog poop. Not my dog's poop, but trust me I'm close to saying screw it.