For the long Memorial Weekend, I set out to explore some local state parks, natural areas, and monuments. I originally intended to leave Friday after work, but heavy rains changed my plans. Instead, I woke early and started driving with no idea on the first destination other than a general direction of southwest Wisconsin. I checked my saved list of places to see and Blue Mound State Park was the nearest option. The goal was simple: get out into the woods and (in my typical fashion) try to see everything possible on a truncated schedule.
The park sits atop the largest hill in the southern half of the state (elevation 1,716 ft; prominence 450ft). For us flat-lander cheese heads, this is as close to a mountain as we get! I started at the west tower & Flint Rock Nature Trail with the intention of completing that short loop. Trail signs were often poorly marked and I got “lost”. Ended up doing part of the Willow Springs trail where it connected and also climbed both observation towers. This is one of the smaller parks and there aren’t that many trails. I chose to pass on the others for now because the overgrowth made everything look identical anyways.
Weather was overcast and grey with some spots of blue sky, but not often. Cloud cover limited viewing distances and appeared as fog from afar. Bugs (mostly super annoying gnats) were quite bad here even though I was using permethrin/picardin repellents – they didn’t seem to care.
Several more new posts are on the way, stay tuned!
Hiking data from my GaiaGPS app/website. I’m including these whenever I can mostly so if I ever look back later there is reference. Apparently I don’t move very fast – probably due to stopping and taking photos or enjoying the views!
