Posts filed under Wisconsin

Elroy Sparta trails and tunnels in Wisconsin

Adventure Tuesday

Elroy Sparta Bike Trail

W and I went biking the Elroy Sparta trail that goes between Elroy and Sparta, hence the name. We ended up starting in a small town called Norwalk, and the plan was to bike all three tunnels. However, my knee decided to not corporate with me and we only did one tunnel. The old conservation department started to convert the old railroad to a trail in 1965.

I think it's pretty cool to bike through a landscape like this, and that it's made so accessible. The trails are in perfect shape. They go through agricultural lands and deep forests.

The Tunnel/s

It's pretty cool to see all the design features of the tunnel. These tunnels were built at the end of 1800, in an effort to keep the gradient down for the trains. Apparently they had to install these large doors because of the temperature differences inside and outside the tunnels (warmer inside and colder outside in the wintertime). Which led to the fact that someone had to be stationed there to open and close the tunnel doors as soon as a train came.

I guess I never quite thought about the fact that the tunnels would be dark. Next time i will for sure remember to bring my headlamp. The light on my phone did help a little bit to make sure you didn't trip on anything. These tunnels supposedly has some bats in them, but we never saw any. I was thinking that the tunnels would be prime habitat for rats, but no rats. The only animal we saw was unfortunately a dead raccoon :(

The Creamery

In Norwalk, at the start of the trail, there is this beautiful old creamery. It looks like it's abandon now but I hope that they wont let it go to waste, because it is really pretty!

Have you encountered any cool trails lately?

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Posted on September 13, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Wisconsin and tagged Elroy Sparta Bike trail biking tunnels Railroad Wisconsin Norwalk Summer Adventures 2016 Trail Rail Trail Bike Adventure Biking.

Pine Cliff and Lakeview Trails

Adventure Tuesday

I know the weeks seem to go awfully fast and September is already upon us. Although, no fall weather here yet since the temperatures were in the upper 80's this past weekend.

Pine Cliff and Lakeview Trails

We went to Governor Dodge state park again, and as I mentioned before these parks are fairly big with lots of different trails. This time around we decided to do a hike around the lake called the pine cliff trail, and also a smaller hike called the lakeview trail. Again these parks never seem to cease to amaze me. They are always a mix of deep forest, fields of wildflowers and if you are lucky even some cliffs. We started of in the forest before we climbed up the ridge line.

You start by walking through a dense stand of deciduous trees, and work yourself towards a more pine dominated vegetation.

There are of course a ton of small details to look at as you move through the forest, much to W's despair.

The main attraction is just like the name gives away, a pine cliff, that is a cliff with lots of pine growing upon it.

I am always so amazed that trees and plants for that matter can grow in places with practically no soil.

Eventually we worked our way down the ridge and came back down towards the lake.

With a thin layer of topsoil I was not surprised to encounter this area, where apparently a tornado went through a long time ago.

These trails can also be used during the wintertime for crosscountry skiing. I just wish we will get enough snow to be able to get out this winter.

Hiking Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park in Wisconin

Adventure Tuesday

Time flies, and today I am posting the 6th Adventure Tuesday post. It's fun to share some of my every day adventures. An adventure doesn't have to involve a risk for your life rafting down the Grand Canyon, or climbing the tallest mountain in the world. You decide what your adventure is, your pace and how far you are willing to go.

Cherokee Marsh

This past weekend W and I decided to go to a park that is about 10-15 minutes by car from our house, so basically in the near vicinity of Madison. We had something else planned originally but had to switch those plans and ended up doing this instead.

Arriving at the park I immediately spotted all the water droplets on the spiderwebs even before we stopped the car. The morning started off as a foggy surprise and it definitely continued to surprise us, well at least to me.

We started off by walking up the trail from the south side of the marsh and immediately got some views of the Yahara river which flows into lake Mendota.

As I mentioned earlier the weather was foggy and a bit cloudy. This walk varied between open fields with views of the river and beautiful stretches through oak forests.

We kept seeing more spiderwebs of different shapes along the hike, mixed in with the vegetation.

Again, as many of the other hikes we do, this one was not that far. But I am mostly interested in getting outside and also to take some pictures of all the cool plants and insects I see.

I try to identify time as time goes by, so if some of them are unnamed check back later on to see if I managed to identify them, or better yet, if you know the name of the plant let me know!

It's incredible how many different types of flowers there are here. Ok, there are a lot of flowers and such around fairbanks too, but not like this. Or maybe I am just biased because a lot of these flowers are new to me.

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We did run into the giant wasp here too, but now I know they are harmless and it did make me feel as if they were less intimidating, but man, look at that size. Also I managed to snap a few pics of two different butterflies.