Roche-A-Cri State Park, Friendship, WI, July 24-26, 2015

Rock outcropping at Roche-A-Cri

A few weeks ago, my wife asked if I wanted to go camping over the next few weeks, and I responded that I would prefer to go to the backcountry or at least to some places we've never been. Her search found Roche-A-Cri State Park in Friendship, WI. After looking for it on the map, I became a bit concerned because it seemed to just be a tiny spot of green along the highway near a small town, but it turned out to be a pretty nice park.

Roche-A-Cri State Park was basically established to protect a 300-ft rock outcropping and Native American petroglyphs. The park has about 5 miles of hiking trails, 41 campsites and a creek that supposedly has decent fishing. The rock mound supposedly was an island in Glacial Lake Wisconsin about 15,000 years ago. Despite the park's small size, I recommend a visit and would camp there again.

July 10-12, 2015, Wyalusing State Park, Bagley, WI

Wisconsin River

We spent the weekend car camping at Wyalusing State Park, which is at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. The park offers beautiful views of both rivers from the bluffs above, has about 14 miles of hiking trails, multiple playgrounds and has a signed canoe trail through the sloughs and down the Mississippi River. The camping accommodations are fairly typical of a state park, and there are two campgrounds. The Wisconsin Ridge Campground overlooks the Wisconsin River and has some nice views, but the campsites are wide open and right on top of each other. The Homestead Campground is, by comparison, more secluded and wooded. However, most of the sites are small and close to the campground road.

July 3, 2015, Escanaba and Lost Canoe Lakes, NHAL State Forest, Boulder Junction, WI

I don't normally blog about day trips, but there is not a lot of information about canoeing in this area and not all of it is accurate, so I thought it would be worth writing about our experience paddling in the National Highland American Legion (NHAL) State Forest. 

As a compromise for missing out on Independence Day festivities last year, we settled on a mixture of day paddling and tourist activities in Minocqua, WI. After poring over maps of the area over the winter, I decided I wanted to try paddling/portaging around Lost Canoe Lake, partially because of the name and because there are a number of canoe campsites in the area. The NHAL offers a number of canoe routes (pdf) with both reservable and first-come campsites.