Brady's Bluff and The Fairytale Forest in Wisconsin

Adventure Tuesday

Brady's Bluff - The Fairytale Forest

At Perrot State Park, where we went camping a few weekends ago, there are a few very short hiking trails. One of the park rangers pointed out a short hike, up in elevation, the evening we arrived. He looked at his watch and said well if you are fast and set up your camp, maybe you'll make it in time to see the sunset. I decided that I didn't want to bike over there to watch the sunset, but after seeing the low sun and the show it already had started, I changed my mind pretty fast. After arriving at the campsite, W and I had a beer and then I biked to Brady's Bluff by myself and took pictures of the sunset.

I literally ran up all the stairs so that I wouldn't miss it.

It felt like I was running up a tree house, these pictures don't give the reality justice, even though they are really pretty!

I sent pictures to W of the sunset and he was regretting his decision so much that we went there the next day too. The view and everything was still spectacular, of course.

The bluff itself consists of sandstone that has ben capped by a certain dolomite, Prairie du Chien dolomite.

In the mid 1930's, and the depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built large parts of this trail. During the depression the CCC was formed, intended to decrease the number of unemployed people, conserve nature and to "keep youth off the streets". The results at Brady's Bluff are pretty spectacular.

These stone steps covers large parts of the trail, and today of course, some areas have been reinforced, and also new wooden steps have been added (I guess they now realized how heavy those rocks must have been and that few people would want to carry those stones up the bluff..)

Just look at all those beautiful steps, built in with nature. The trail itself started down low of course, but very fast the bluffs and the thick vegetation took over as you zig zagged and circled to get up and up and up.