Posts tagged #Devils Lake State Park

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 4

Flashback Friday

October

    October arrived, more work of course. We had friends over for a Swedish dinner party, filled with snaps, meatballs and good company. Gorgeous sunsets by the lake and the terrace. At the end of October we went to New York. I explored all of Central Park and managed to do about 9 miles walking per day on average. We saw Columbia University and a lot of other pretty places in the city. After that we went to Princeton, New Jersey. I fell in love with that small town. What a place. Like England on steroids, in the middle of nowhere, or so it felt. Fall colors had already arrived and I saw some great art at the art museum.

November

    November came and with that more fall. Fall has become a sad season for me, since my mom died in November 2016. This November our cat Olive got sick, and we though she just had a cold or something. We took her to the vet, and brought her home after some antibiotic shots. A week later we were there again, because she was breathing weird. That's when they noticed the water in the chest cavity, which apparently equals to "she will die". And she did, about three days later at a different vet, she stopped breathing while they were putting the catheter in after we decided to put her down. She died on her own terms. She was only about 8 years and had cancer in all of her stomach, so there wasn't anything we could do. 

December

    December and yet another Christmas. This year we did not venture out to Bozeman, instead we stayed in Madison. I baked, a lot. So much saffron in this house. I had been a bit sad about the lack of snow and thought that this would be the first Christmas in the US without snow. But on Christmas Eve I woke up to snow falling on the ground! Later that morning we went to Natural Bridge State Park and explored it all by ourselves. Apparently no one else go hiking on Christmas Eve. We celebrated christmas both on Christmas Eve, the Swedish tradition, and on Christmas Day, W's tradition. We even managed to have a fire outside, which was great. I always forgot how nice it is to have a fire outside, especially when it's cold.

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged rearviewmirror2017 Garden gardening Central Park New York New Jersey Princeton Columbia University Princeton University Fall Madison Madison life Winter winter sun Snow Snowcover Cats Olive Devils Lake State Park Devils Lake Natural Bridge State Park State Park 2018 rearviewmirror.

False Spring in Wisconsin

    A few months ago we had unseasonable warm weather, well it had been warmer than normal, and we decided to visit Devils Lake State Park. I was there this past summer, on a super hot day, so going back there in February was very different. Devils Lake State park is about an hour away from Madison, just north of Madison, which is probably also one of the reasons that so many people visit the park in the summertime. Of course fewer people visit this park, or rather any park, in the wintertime. As the name entails, this park surrounds a large lake and there are beautiful bluffs on either side of the lake. You can walk around the whole lake or just do a shorter hike on either side. In the summertime you can swim in this beautiful lake, that is also one of the reasons why so many people come here in the summertime. The water is so clean, compared to how both Mendota and Monona gets in the summertime.

IMG_4675.jpg

-our feet sank down into the wet snow

as we started walking on the Grotto trails

    We decided to pick the route that would lead towards the Balanced Rock, which is a popular destination. Our feet sank down into the wet snow, as we started walking on the Grotto trails, not too deep though, just enough, enough to make an indent and enough to keep you dry. We continued walking and eventually cut across towards the cliff, and the rocks, to continue uphill. Now we had to use our hands from time to time, because part of this trail was very icy, icy from the warm weather that had melted all the snow. I was thinking to myself that maybe we should have brought crampons, or something alike, but we continued. Part of the trail consisted of boulders (talus slopes), and other parts were nice steps, well, nice ice covered steps and the higher we climbed the greater the view. As we reached the end of the steep parts I was wondering how we were going to get down, because it's easier to go up, compared to down when it's pretty icy. 

    We continued on top of the ridge, through the grotto and stone formations, continuing on the trail that eventually took us through the hardwood forest. 

    One of my personal goals for this hike was to take some pictures of the balanced rock. As we approached the trail that was suppose to take us down to the balanced rock, and then continue down towards the start of the trail, we saw frozen water, ice. We stood there for a while, looking down towards the boulders of different sizes and the mixture with hard ice and snow on top of them. We were trying to come up with the best option, should we or shouldn't we? I knew that if we decided to get down this first set of rocks, it would be impossible to get back up with all the ice covering the steps, and I had no clue how the trail was farther down. But we went for it. 

    Part of this path was very icy, and we actually slid down on our bums for parts of it, since that seemed safer than to try to walk on all the ice. These talus slopes are so cool, lots of large boulders to climb on. By the time we got back down to the parking lot it was almost pitch black. 

    I guess Wisconsin isn't that bad after all :) It is definitely growing on me. All of these beautiful places you can go to, fairly easy! Do you have a favorite place close to where you live?

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Madison Life, Wisconsin and tagged Adventuring Adventure Winter Adventures 2017 Madison Madison life Devils Lake State Park Devils Lake Hiking Hikes Spring.

Hiking Devils Lake State Park in Wisconsin

 

Adventure Tuesday again, and this time I'll bring you to Devils Lake. I brought my DSLR camera on the hike, but since I wasn't hiking with W, I actually didn't take that many pictures. I did snap quite a few with my phone though, as always. 

Devils Lake State Park

    It's been hot, like for a Swede hot. It's in the upper 80s -90s (27-35 C) almost every day now, and humid, some mornings it's about 98% humidity. A friend of mine suggested going on a hike around a lake, and then finish of with a dip in the water. Of course we weren't the only people there, many many cars and parking lot was already filling up early in the morning when we arrived. Most people go there to BBQ, hang out and swim in the water. Fewer people actually do hike the trail, although, plenty of people compared to a day-hike in Alaska. I have a falcon guide book to hikes near Madison that actually describes this hike as "one of the tougher in the book". I guess this speaks to the fact that there aren't any mountains, or large hills in Wisconsin. There are several trails, you can walk along the ridge on both sides of the lake, which is what we did, in that way you actually get some views too. 

 
 

The Landscape   

    Since we wanted to hike on the ridge, we quickly started to climb and got some gorgeous views of the lake and the forest. The landscape is really pretty, boulders mixed with both deciduous and coniferous trees. And boulders, lots of boulders, leftover from glaciers back in the day, combined with lush green vegetation, like everywhere in Wisconsin. The area is a great spot for vulture watching, and we did see quite a few, but hard to catch with your iphone camera. We saw more signs of glaciers, and then one of the main attraction, which everyone else wanted to see and touch too: the Balanced Rock.

 
 

Trail Maintenance

    They really take care of their trails here, almost a little too much maybe. Parts of the trail actually had asphalt on it. Makes it easier to hike on though, and less erosion i would think, but not sure how it works during a heavy rainstorm. I would think it would channelize the rainwater? 

 
 

 I had a really great time, even though this is very different from Alaska. On the other hand it's very similar to Sweden. At the end of the day that dip in the water felt very good. 

Where do you go to swim, do you have any nearby lakes? Or maybe outdoor pools?

 
Posted on August 9, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Wisconsin, Madison Life and tagged Devils Lake Devils Lake State Park State Park Blue Lake Forest Wisconsin hiking Summer Adventures Madison Adventure Trail Trails Hiking vandra Hikes.