Niobrara National Scenic River
Nebraska
Tonight
🌗 46% moon
6 h fully dark
Hikes
Easy
🟢
Crowds
low
Open today
Open
Entrance
Free entry
Life Jackets Required!
By Nebraska State law, all children 13 years old and younger must WEAR a USCG approved life jacket to float the Niobrara NSR. Anyone over 13 years old must HAVE a life jacket. If you are renting equipment, your outfitter will provide them.
With a little something for everyone, the Niobrara National Scenic River is a destination for crossing adventures off your bucket list. Most popular for river recreation, you can float the Niobrara River on a canoe, tube, or kayak as a beginner and have a blast. Hiking, biking, and wildlife watching keep our visitors busy. Oh! And we haven't even told you about the waterfalls yet.
Activities
Topics
No entrance fee.
Hours & seasons
Most of the river itself is open 24 hours a day, with the exception of the river that flows through Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge. The river in that stretch is open from sunrise to sunset. Please use caution: because the NPS does not own the land, different sites and private businesses have their own hours. Please ensure that you are following individual landowner regulations when you launch, take out, or visit individual areas.
Generally open:
winterspringsummerfallHours are reported by the park — verify before you go.
📞 4023761901
✉ niobrara_nsr@nps.govConditions
Quietest months (fewer crowds): Jan, Feb, Nov, Dec
Typical crowds: low
Weather now: ☀️ Clear, 83°F
⛅ 90°/56°
☁️ 85°/66°
☁️ 103°/61°
Typical monthly recreation visits · NPS avg 2023–2025 — orange months are the quietest by crowds.
Quietest months
Relative crowds by month — lighter is quieter; ringed months are the calmest by crowds.
Jan
3%
Feb
2%
Mar
5%
Apr
6%
May
22%
Jun
53%
Jul
100%
Aug
91%
Sep
31%
Oct
6%
Nov
2%
Dec
2%
Log a sky reading
Measured the sky with an SQM meter or app? Add your reading (16 = city glow … 22 = pristine). Opt in under “Travelers like you” to share it on the community leaderboard.
Things to do
Bike the Cowboy Trail · Visitors can spend as much time as they prefer on the Cowboy Trail. <br /> <br /> Biking to the historic railroad bridge from the Valentine City Park Trailhead is 2.5 miles, one way.<br /> <br /> Walking out and back to the historic railroad bridge from the Highway 20 Trailhead and parking lot can take about an hour, but can be done in much shorter time as well. The distance to the bridge from that trailhead is 0.75 miles.
🟢 Float the Niobrara River · Float duration varies based on which landings you plan to get in and out on. Floats can be as short as 20 minutes and up to 8:00 hours in a day, or you could float all 76 protected miles of river over 3 days!<br /> <br /> For this example, from Fort Niobrara's Launch to Brewer Bridge, the float time is about four hours (4:00).<br /> <br />
Shoot Winter Photography at Fort Falls · Walking to the Fort Falls from the parking lot may take about 5 minutes, but along the way you will crossover the stream that feeds the falls and see the forest canopies at all levels as you travel down to the base of the waterfall. You can take as much or as little time to photograph these phenomena of nature as you would like.
Hike to Fort Falls · 1 mi · Walking just the 0.25 mile to the Fort Falls and Niobrara River Bank can be done in about 20 minutes, but to enjoy all that this trail has to offer, we recommend the whole 1.0 mile loop, which can take about an hour.
Visitor centers
Niobrara National Scenic River Visitor Center
Accessibility
21 audio-described place(s)
Reported by the park — verify before you go.
Not an official safety source — always defer to NPS.gov and rangers for life-safety decisions.
By the numbers
A visual read on Niobrara National Scenic River — its character, trails, sky, and weather.
Park fingerprint
How this park scores across the dimensions travelers care about.
Trail difficulty
Difficulty mix across this park's trails.
3-day forecast
Daily high and low temperatures (°F).
Passport stamps
Mark the stamps you've collected — they show in your memory and along your routes.
🎫 Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge
🎫 Niobrara National Scenic River Bookstore
🎫 Niobrara National Scenic River Visitor Center
🎫 Smith Falls State Park
Places to see
Berry Falls
audio
Brewer Bridge Landing
audio
Conner Rapids
audio
Eagle Rapids
audio
Egelhoff's Narrows
audio
Egelhoff's Rapid
audio
Fort Falls
audio
Fort Falls Rapids
audio
Fort Niobrara NWR Launch Site
audio
Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge
audio
Fritzes Island Rapids
audio
Fritzes Narrows
audioAudio & media
🎧
🎬
🖼
Learn more
View 2022 recipients of the National Park Service Excellence in Education Awards, which recognize expertise within the field of education.
The Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network monitors bats to detect long-term trends in bat populations at Niobrara National Scenic River. Eight acoustic recording stations detect the unique ultrasonic calls bats use for echolocation. Monitoring helps protect the bat communities that live and forage in the park
Bison crossing the Niobrara National Scenic River via the Buffalo Bridge in the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge.
Buffalo Soldier of Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, circa 1880's.
The Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago [MYA] through today) is the "Age of Mammals." North America’s characteristic landscapes began to develop during the Cenozoic. Birds and mammals rose in prominence after the extinction of giant reptiles. Common Cenozoic fossils include cat-like carnivores and early horses, as well as ice age woolly mammoths.
Across the US, changes in water availability are altering which plants grow where. These changes are evident at a broad scale. But not all areas experience the same climate in the same way, even within the boundaries of a single national park. A new dataset gives park managers a valuable tool for understanding why vegetation has changed and how it might change in the future under different climate-change scenarios.
The Niobrara River is 76 miles of quiet winter peace in the heartland of Nebraska. Find a meandering abode of river banks, wildlife, and frozen waterfalls for mindfulness, peace, and inspiration.
Explore what wellness is and how you can tap into it while visiting Niobrara National Scenic River and other National Parks.
Ranger School
Park-grounded courses you can learn with the Ranger.
How Niobrara National Scenic River connects
This park's activities, topics, location, and on-the-ground places — one hop in the graph. Drag to explore; click an activity, topic, or related park to follow it.
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Topic
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VisitorCenter
PassportStamp
ThingToDo
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