If you think the water is warm enough, have fun swimming in the rivers or lakes in these state parks.
Mill Bluff State Park was the last of four parks we visited in one excursion. The other three were Council Grounds, Kinnickinnic, and Willow River. Mill Bluff is what I would call a simple park. There’s very little in the way of trails (and we didn’t even hike it/them, as you’ll see). There’s one big …
Willow River State Park is one of the more popular among Wisconsin state parks, primarily because it has a large waterfall that isn’t likely to dry up as it’s so close to the river’s mouth which joins the St. Croix River about 5 miles downstream. Getting to and from the falls can be quite the …
Kinnickinnic State Park is a nice place to visit…if you can find it! We came from a hotel in Hudson, which is almost 10 miles (not 8.7, as the official trail map suggests) from the park. Driving south on County F, there is one small sign half a mile before you get to the road …
We often try to double-up or triple-up our visits to state parks on our journeys. Council Grounds State Park would pair nicely with Rib Mountain State Park, since they’re only about half an hour apart from each other. However, on this trip, since we had already visited Rib Mountain last year, we just took in …
Our visit to Wisconsin’s largest state park, Devil’s Lake State Park, included three other hikes as well – in Natural Bridge State Park, in Tower Hill State Park, and through Cave of the Mounds. The hike around Devil’s Lake was by far the most difficult of these and is probably the toughest hike we’ll take …
If you live in Wisconsin or Minnesota (or possibly anywhere else), you likely realize where the name, Wissota, comes from. Wikipedia claims: “An engineer on the [Lake Wissota Hydroelectric Dam] project [that created the lake], Louis G. Arnold, named the lake by combining the beginning of “Wisconsin” and the ending of “Minnesota”.” And you would …
Governor Dodge State Park is currently the 3rd largest state park in Wisconsin. (Buckhorn and Devil’s Lake are bigger.) As if to emphasize this fact, half of the hiking trails are over 2 miles long each, and almost everything shorter than that is either inaccessible directly or isn’t worth walking on its own. That’s pretty …
Hartman Creek State Park may offer the widest variety of activities of any Wisconsin state park. In addition to the frequently-found hiking, boating, camping, and hunting (and related) activities, you can go mountain (fat tire, singletrack) biking, swimming, snowmobiling, and horseback riding. Many miles of trails are specifically designed for horseback riding, for singletrack biking …
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. …
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. …
