Bottom of the Yellow
Published June 30, 2011 | 
The Wisconsin River travels some 500 miles from the Michigan border until it joins the Mississippi river near Prairie du Chien. Over that distance the river drops about 1000 feet is interrupted by 26 hydro-electric dams. Those 26 dams provide about the same amount of electricity as needed just by the city of Madison each year. Two of these dams sit on the river just north of us and create the Petenwell and Castle Rock Flowages which are some of the largest inland lakes in the state. Castle Rock & Petenwell are popular outdoor recreation areas, but they still retain a lot of untouched shoreline making them a great destination for area paddlers.
Yesterday we decided take our kayaks to Castle Rock. The Castle Rock Flowage covers 16,640 acres of which we’ve paddled only a few. Buckhorn state park is located along the shore and provides a variety of boat launches as well as other amenities including a campground and great hiking trails as well. On this visit, we wanted to explore the quiet, marshy area where the Yellow River makes it’s way into the big lake. The hiking trails weren’t gonna do it! Continue reading
Boatloads of Discontent
Published June 26, 2011 | 
Wisconsin, like in so many other places around the country and around the world, is facing an abrupt change in how we how we treat others and our environment, all in the name of money as usual. At the moment, those who choose individualism and corporate profit are in charge. The folks interested in a more social view, workers rights, and concern for the environment are finding themselves left adrift and carrying signs.. Things will change. Everything is cyclical. What bothers me personally are the folks who live on the fringe who really have no voice and will simply suffer even more while the rest of us spin in a holding pattern of debate. Yesterday at our local state park, our freshly minted Governor showed up to take part in the 100 year celebration. It was clear pretty quickly that the majority of the people attending the event were not fans, but were there to protest.. Even on the water… Continue reading
100 Years
Published June 25, 2011 | 
Today we celebrate the centennial of Devil’s Lake State Park here in Baraboo, Wisconsin. If you’re not from the central part of the US it’s hard to explain what Devil’s Lake means to folks here in the Mid-West, other than to say that 1.8 million visitors enter the park each year. That means if Devil’s Lake were a National Park, it would (according to Madison.com) rank number 12 between Glacier National Park (2.2 million) in Montana and Joshua Tree National Park (1.4 million). The park is popular among not only weekend beach goers but is also well-known for its many miles of hiking trails, rock climbing opportunities, mountain biking, and of course, paddling. Continue reading
Posted in My Paddling, Nature & Wildlife, Outdoor Recreation, Paddling | 
devils lake, wisconsin | 
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Published June 22, 2011 | 
I was thinking about eye candy the other day. I was out paddling in a marsh on the edge of my local lake and felt the urge to take a picture. That’s how we’ve come to react to the world around us these days.. snap a shot, tweet a tweet… I feel it all the time myself! Thing is, the only thing I had on me was my iPhone. Still, maybe I could get something. I carefully took it out of the drybag and took a few pics.. You definitely need to be creative with an iPhone since it’s picture quality is pretty well, not so good. But as I looked around at the world I wanted to capture, I realized there was nothing much to look at. Visually it was nothing but tall grass and some fallen trees. Nothing striking or really all that interesting. That urge I felt to capture the image, was simply my mind misreading a sensual que. It took a moment to sort out. What made the spot so note-worthy at that very moment wasn’t what I was seeing at all. It was the sounds. Continue reading
Posted in Enviroment, My Paddling, Nature & Wildlife, Outdoor Recreation, Paddling, Photography | devils lake, nature, wisconsin | 1 CommentA Return to Mirror Lake
Published June 20, 2011 | 
Wisconsin Dells used to be a place known for its natural beauty made especially famous by the work of photographer, H.H. Bennet in the late 1800′s and early 1900s. It wasn’t long before “The Dells” became a popular vacation destination and it also wasn’t long before nature took a back seat profit-making.. The rest, as they say, is history. Today it’s still possible to find the beauty of the Dells, but often it comes attached to a time limit and a steep admission fee. To spend time really taking in what made Wisconsin Dells so popular in the first place, you’ll need to find one of the few parks or natural areas. The best option is to explore by boat.. if you pick the right time and can hunt down one of the few public boat landings! (OK.. a duck ride is not bad either!) Continue reading
Posted in My Paddling, Paddling | mirror lake, Mirror Lake State Park, wisconsin, wisconsin dells | 1 Comment3 Days by Bike…
Published June 14, 2011 | 
We began our 3 day bike trip through rural west-central Wisconsin in a downpour. In fact it rained on and off much of the first 2 days with the sun waiting to show its face until the morning of our very last day. You may think that’s a bad thing, but in truth biking in the rain can feel better than biking under a hot sun. The heavy clouds and a wet landscape also add color and shadow to an environment that would have otherwise been lost in a white summer glare. There were sections of the trail that seemed more like they were winding their way through Panama than the heart of cow country. All in all, we couldn’t have asked for a better way to take in Wisconsin’s amazing Elroy-Sparta and 400 Bike trails. Continue reading
Posted in Cycling, Nature & Wildlife, Outdoor Recreation | 400 trail, biking, Elroy-Sparta Trail, wisconsinChanging Gears
Published June 9, 2011 | 
Tomorrow we being a three-day cycling adventure through the heart of Wisconsin beginning on the Elroy-Sparta trail, then continuing on the state 400 trail. The Elroy-Sparta trail is converted railway that covers about 32 miles of rural Wisconsin. The show stoppers on this trail are the 3 tunnels cut through Wisconsin hill country, the longest being nearly a mile in length. The tunnels are over 100 years old now. Originally they were dug from both ends and the workers used hand tools, horses, mules and oxen to remove the freed rock. Slowly over the years, water seepage causing erosion and leaving mineral depots have made the tunnels look less like historic railways and more like ancient caves. They are cool, dark, damp, spooky and amazing! Continue reading
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