Sugar Bottom Day Use Area

Sugar Bottom Day Use Area is a day-use facility on the shore of Coralville Lake, which provides many recreational opportunities including boating, camping, hiking, mountain biking, lake and river fishing, swimming, water skiing, picnicking and hunting. The day-use location offers a large group picnic area with drinking water and electricity. Amenities include flush toilets, a playground, a beach, a disc golf course and a mountain bike trail. The Sugar Bottom Disc Golf Course offers 18 partially wooden and open holes, and the Sugar Bottom Mountain Bike Trail runs from beginner to expert. Several trails are within Sugar Bottom, including the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and a barrier-free asphalt trail. Anglers will find large and smallmouth bass, crappie, walleye and catfish. Just below the dam, the Devonian Fossil Gorge offers a unique opportunity to explore a 375-million-year-old sea floor and discover fossil remains of sea life that once inhabited this tropical marine environment; twenty discovery points can be found throughout the site, along with a cell phone audio tour. Coralville Lake is located in the Iowa River Valley, just north of Iowa City. Sugar Bottom lies among a heavily wooded forest of mixed hardwood species on the east side of the lake. Wildlife is abundant — white-tailed deer, turkeys, pheasants, waterfowl, song birds and other species roam the lands around the lake.