Hiking is available in virtually every state park. Check the trail lengths and difficulty before you start your trek.
Mirror Lake State Park contains MIrror Lake. Nothing surprising there. But Mirror Lake, though technically a lake, is one of those bodies of water that’s really just a wider-than-usual section of a river – in this case, a few wider sections. Mirror Lake is not a standalone body of water with no inlet or outlet. …
New Glarus Woods State Park is pretty much what its name says. It’s a state park that is mostly woods near New Glarus. There’s nothing spectacular about it. It’s just a nice place to visit – perhaps to camp – that has interesting vegetation (mainly outside the wooded areas) and a place to play. I’ll …
Blue Mound State Park When I got out of the car to snap the picture (above) of the Blue Mound State Park sign, the first thing I thought was, “It’s really, really quiet out here.” There happened to be little to no breeze that day, but I think there was more to it than that. …
Why is it called Big Foot Beach State Park? Good question. Fortunately there’s a fairly short answer. Big Foot (an English translation) was an early leader of the Potawatomi in this area. Geneva Lake (or Lake Geneva) used to be called Big Foot Lake. The park itself is just across the road from a beach …
We didn’t spend a lot of time at Lake Kegonsa State Park on this our first visit. It was our second park of the day, after Governor Nelson State Park, and we were getting tired. What little we did see was interesting though. We hiked the short Oak Knoll Trail loop, and I got to …
Our first trip to Governor Nelson State Park came a day after our visit to Cross Plains State Park. To get from one park to the other, you go through Middleton, Wisconsin. In Middleton is the National Mustard Museum (formerly located in Mount Horeb). So we just had to stop in there to see what …
It’s difficult to find the date when Cross Plains State Park came into existence – almost as hard as finding your way around the park itself. As of this writing, it’s the newest state park in Wisconsin, possibly having come into its own in 2017. Cross Plains State Park is part of what the DNR …
Lakeshore State Park With a name like Lakeshore State Park, you probably can guess that this park is on the shore of a lake. The problem is that nearly half of Wisconsin’s border is defined by lakes Michigan and Superior. Well, Lakeshore State Park is on Lake Michigan and is very near the heart of …
There is no official definition of a mountain. So, if the people of Wisconsin want to call one of the highest points in the state a mountain, we can. Rib Mountain’s highest elevation is 1942 feet above sea level, but it only rises about 740 feet above the surrounding land. This makes the approach to …
Brunet Island State Park is mostly located on an island in the Chippewa River. The entrance to the park is on the eastern shore of the river. The park there is adjacent to the small city of Cornell. When you cross a narrow section of the river to get onto the island, you don’t feel …
