After a record-breaking season that saw almost 30,000 people visit the former landfill turned greenspace, Mount Trashmore is closing for the winter. Trashmore’s trails and the overlook pavilion at its peak will close at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. They will reopen in the spring “when the weather allows,” according to the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency, which manages the mount.
This year, 29,448 people visited the “6 million tons of garbage transformed into a recreation destination with walking and bicycling trails and a scenic overlook” that opened in 2018. The 208 feet of buried garbage make Mount Trashmore the highest point in Linn County. At 948 feet above sea-level, it’s 16 feet higher than Mount Mercy, the county’s highest natural feature.
In addition to a new record for visitors, Mount Trashmore also set a new record this year for people completing the Mount Trashmore Challenge. In the challenge, participants hike up a trail to the top 140 times in a season, using the challenge’s app to document their progress. By going up Trashmore 140 times, you cover the same distance as mountaineers climbing from base camp to the peak of Mount Everest. This year, 98 people completed the challenge.
“That is a combined total of 28,279 miles walked,” the agency said in a Facebook post.
The Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency was following a national trend of repurposing landfills for recreation when it converted the Cedar Rapids landfill that closed in 2013 into Mount Trashmore.
The first Mount Trashmore opened as a park in Evanston, Illinois in 1965. At 65 feet, it’s more of a hill than a mount, but it does stay open in the winter, when locals can use it for sledding and tobogganing.
“That is something we cannot do, because we have 47 gas collection wells,” Joe Horaney, communications director for the waste agency, told Little Village in 2018. The wells are collecting the gas generated by the garbage decaying under the green.
But even if sledding is off the table, there might be a chance for a little hiking before the spring reopening.
“This winter, if there are unseasonably warm days and the trails, or trail, are in good enough condition, Mount Trashmore will be opened,” the agency said in its post.
If Mount Trashmore does reopen during the winter, information about hours and activities will be posted on Trashmore’s site.
