A 5 Mile Ride Through The Covered Indian Creek Storm Sewer
Council Bluffs, Iowa
If you’ve spent any time in Council Bluffs, you’ve probably driven right over Indian Creek without a second thought. To most people, it's just a concrete ditch. But to me… an urban explorer, that massive, high-walled channel is an invitation to fun, mystery, and maybe probably death if it rains while in there!
Recently, I decided to tackle a true subterranean adventure: biking a full 5 miles into the covered Indian Creek channel and then turning around to bike the 5 miles right back out the exact same way. Why? Because once you’re in there, the concrete walls are far too high to get out anywhere else. Even where it comes out over by Christy Crème.
The Subterranean Ride Under the City
My journey started down by the Union Pacific Auto Depot, where the channel is completely open and easily accessible. Getting down into the creek bed was easy enough, but as I pedaled forward, the massive concrete walls started to rise up around me. Eventually, I hit Broadway, and that’s where the true adventure began… the channel plunges into total darkness with the exception of grates to let water in.
Biking underneath the city was a surreal experience. It was full a graffiti, but the further you get in the less and less graffiti there is. I navigated right under Indian Creek Road, kept rolling beneath the Buck Snort’s parking lot, and eventually passed straight under the massive Omni Centre.
Believe it or not, the absolute best part of the ride was the fully covered, pitch-black area. Because there’s zero sunlight down there, algae and slime simply can't grow. The concrete was clean without algae, allowing me to confidently bike right down the very center of the shallow stream of water without slipping.
A Slippery Situation (And a Tiny Doomed Deer)
Eventually, the darkness broke, and the channel opened up to the sky again down near Christy Creme.
It was here that the journey took a surprisingly wild turn. Out of nowhere, I spotted a baby deer that had somehow fallen into the high-walled channel! I wanted to help guide it out, but the poor thing was terrified and immediately ran off before I could even get close.
While the deer managed to dash away quickly, my own wheels were struggling. Once the channel opens back up to the sunlight by Christy Creme, the ground conditions completely change. The concrete in this section was broken up, rough, and absolutely caked in thick, green slime and large masses of natural grasses and cattails bursting through. It was easily the hardest portion of the ride. Navigating the algae-slicked chunks of concrete was treacherous, and I even almost wiped out once!
The History: Why is Indian Creek Covered?
If you're wondering why a city would essentially bury a creek inside a giant concrete box, it all comes down to the Missouri River valley's long, destructive history with water.
In the mid-20th century, Council Bluffs was incredibly vulnerable to flash flooding. Heavy rains would turn local tributaries into raging torrents that regularly threatened neighborhoods and downtown businesses. To tame the region's waters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stepped in with an extensive flood-control program that fundamentally changed local stream flows (Fischer & Eash, 1998). Indian Creek was essentially tamed into a giant, high-capacity concrete trough designed to rapidly funnel thousands of cubic feet of floodwater per second away from the city and toward the Missouri River. Historic, devastating floods in the 1940s and 1950s proved exactly why these imposing, inescapable walls were completely necessary to protect the city.
Rainwater Only (Thankfully!)
The most important thing to know if you ever find yourself looking down into Indian Creek: it is strictly a rainwater and storm sewer. This is a huge distinction if you know your local waterways! Across the river in Omaha, areas like the Saddle Creek channel are part of a combined sewer system (Hoover et al., 2020), meaning they mix storm runoff with sanitary sewage. During heavy rainfall, the city of Omaha experiences combined sewer overflows, where untreated sewage and wastewater are known to discharge directly into waterways like the Papillion Creek (Densmore et al., 2020).
Fortunately, Council Bluffs designed Indian Creek solely for storm runoff. So while you might encounter mud, rainwater, and treacherous patches of green slime, you are never biking through a sanitary sewer.
So please enjoy looking through my photos.
Please keep in mind massive amounts of water end up funneled through here... So even a little rain is probably a death wish.
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