Amnicon Falls State Park

This article chronicles our second visit to Amnicon Falls State Park. We visited it almost two years to the day after our first hike here.

I didn’t “count” that first visit as part of the completion of our goal of hiking in all the Wisconsin state parks because I hadn’t conceived the idea at the time. (All the above is true of our first hike at Pattison State Park too.)

Falls, Falls, and More Falls

Amnicon Falls State Park is a great place to visit if you like small to medium sized falls – or no falls at all.

What I mean by that last bit is that there’s a “falls” that’s often not there. It’s called Now and Then.

It’s mostly Then. On the two occasions we’ve looked at it, it’s been dry as a bone.

The main man made feature of the park is this bridge over the Amnicon River. It’s even featured in a jigsaw puzzle we bought at Copper Falls State Park.

From the bridge itself, the Upper Amincon Falls looks like the picture on the left below, and the Lower Amnicon Falls looks like the one on the right.

Snake Pit Falls is on the left below and an unnamed (I think) falls is on the right.

Hiking the Island

That bridge shown above takes you to a small island that’s surrounded by two “branches” of the Amnicon river. It’s the only part of this medium-sized (compared to other Wisconsin state parks) park that we’ve ever really explored.

There is another trail through the woods – the Thimbleberry, but we have yet to hike it and may never do so. Both times that we’ve been to Amnicon, we visited Pattison on the same day, so we didn’t feel like going that extra 0.83 miles.

I’m guessing the trail around the edge of the island is about 0.5 miles. This trail also extends over a smaller bridge and goes toward the park entrance along the river, but we haven’t hiked that part either.

Much of the rock in this area (and others in northern Wisconsin) is this reddish stone. Sorry, I don’t know its technical name. Do you?

So that’s about it. As I said at the top – falls, falls, and more falls. None are nearly as big (or as wet…looking at you, Now and Then) as Big or Little Manitou, but they’re still enjoyable to watch.