Beach access can often be a touchy subject.  This is especially true near a nuclear power plant in the age of terrorism.  So, during a recent trip to Wisconsin, I made it a point to check out the situation just north of the Kewaunee nuclear power plant.

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Hikes in this area start at a small parking area near the intersection of Sandy Bay Road and Lakeview Drive, just to the east of WI state highway 42 about seven miles south of Kewaunee.  From here, a walker can walk all the way to the city.  I have blogged about this route in the past.  You can find a description of the overall route and a link to a virtual earth map of the route here:

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/2007/07/22/kewaunee-beach-hike/

Access in this area has changed over the years.  The concept of beach access is deeply rooted in the laws that created the midwestern territories and, later, states.  Beaches are an extension of Great Lakes bottomlands.  In most midwestern states, but not all, this means that beachwalking is legal on the Great Lakes shoreline as long as there is a public access to the beach.

At this particular location, there is a two-track trail that leads from the parking area to the beach.  A walker crosses a small stream and heads north.

Following the 911 terrorist attacks, this beach access was closed for a time.  The farmers in the area remember several occasions in which walkers were ticketed and even arrested for using this beach access.

Now, a sign clearly marks the boundary past which a hiker will enter legal the plant’s security zone.  Hiking north is perfectly fine.  Just be sure to find the sign first because the plant still enforces this zone strictly.

During this particular walk, Kathy and I walked north for about two miles and back the same way.  The beach in this area is about half the size as it has been in previous years.  Lake Michigan is that much higher.  Natural beach grasses grow on the shoreline.  A few large rocks poke out of the sand offshore.

The most interesting aspect of this section of the Lake Michigan shore is the large set of cliffs that stands just to the west of the shore.  Just underneath the top lip of these cliffs, swallows have built large subterranean colonies.  These birds fly in and out.  They are amazing to watch.

In future posts, I will describe the lake access situation between the Kewaunee nuclear power plant and the Two Rivers nuclear generating facility just to the south.

Most people who visit the Wisconsin Dells spend their nights at cheesy motels and their days immersed in water at the area’s parks.  And, I have to admit, this does have its charms.  Kathy and I took one of those timeshare vacations at the Dells a few years ago.  Once we survived the pressure tactics, I enjoyed myself for about three hours floating on a lazy river.  But the Dells do celebrate an honest-to-god natural attraction.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a RECOMMENDED story about a canoe journey through the Dells on the Wisconsin River taken by descendents of a famed Dells photographer.

Before I throw down the excerpts and link, here’s a tip:  The Wisconsin Dells tourism bureau gives 20% off S.S. Badger coupons to Michiganders who request the Dells travel information package.  It can potentially save lots of money on a cross-lake vacation.

http://wisdells.com/WisconsinDellsVacation/guide.cfm

Now, the excerpts:

We had returned to the river that H.H. Bennett loved so much. H.H. Bennett was our great-grandfather, the pioneer landscape photographer of the Dells of the Wisconsin River and its environs from 1865 to his death in 1908.

During our childhoods, spanning the period of 1947 to 1970, Debbie, Lisa and I had spent many happy hours near and on the river, hiking the trails and cliffs and boating in canoes and a family pontoon boat. The children of H.H. Bennett’s second marriage, our grandmother Ruth Bennett Dyer and great-aunt Miriam Bennett, taught us to cherish its beauty and instilled in us the importance of preserving it by picking up any trash we might find along the riverbanks.

After watching the osprey and carp, we passed a beach where our parents had camped in their youth. We were then across from Cold Water Canyon, a narrow gorge that was a stop on the boat trips in years past. We paddled over to enjoy the shade and coolness.

The water was so still that the surface was covered with green algae, with its own peculiar pleasant odor. The pines growing closely together some 30 feet above us on the rock walls almost completely obscured the sunlight, and we enjoyed the light breeze passing over us.

Re-entering the main channel at the head of the Narrows, we hugged the right side of the river. Sandstone cliffs that resemble prows of ships line this part of river, known as the Navy Yard. It had been so long since I had been so close to the cliffs I was enchanted to see how many little caves were formed by nature.

More here…

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=751504

Note: The photographs above are pre-1920 and, thus, in the public domain.

While waterfall hunting in Wisconsin several weeks ago, I came across a rather interesting historic site.  The Old Rock Mill and Museum is located near the town of Maribel, WI.  Visitors can access the site by exiting I-43 at State Route 147.  A mile or so east, turn north onto County Road R.  Drive past the entrance to the Maribel Caves County Park and watch on the left for an old mill site.

The Old Rock Mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The mill is one of the oldest in Manitowoc County and is remarkably well-preserved.  The mill’s period of usefulness began around 1825 and processed rock from the surrounding canyon and bedrock.  The mill is located on top of a section of the Niagara Escarpment, the same formation that creates Niagara Falls in New York State.

Aside from the historic buildings, the mill site sits at a very picturesque location.  The Devils River cascades across a rocky riverbed through the mill site.  My Wisconsin Gazetteer noted a waterfall at the mill site.  I am not completely sure that I photographed the actual waterfall.  The water was so high and I was not quite sure about property access, so I only took a picture of the drop that accompanies this blog post.  It seems completely possible that there is a much larger cascade further upstream.

The Old Rock Mill is privately owned.  It is a part of a campground area.  The owners, however, operate a museum in the mill buildings, so there is good public access.  When I visited, however, the museum and site were closed for the winter.

This is not a location to go terribly far out of the way for.  However, the Maribel Caves are very close by.  And Manitowoc County contains many sites of interest to the nature and history lover.  These can be combined with the Old Rock Mill for a pleasant visit.

Here is the location on Microsoft Virtual Earth:

http://tinyurl.com/5babvs

One of my goals during a recent trip to Wisconsin was to explore several waterfalls that I had noticed in my Wisconsin Gazetteer.  I saw three in the vicinity of a place called Cherney Maribel Caves (Manitowoc) County Park.  So, off I went.

This section of Wisconsin is blessed to have giant slabs of Niagara Dolomite running south to north underneath the ground.  This is the same geologic formation that creates Niagara Falls and the Bruce Trail through Ontario.  Sections of this rock formation rise from the flat countryside.  There are nice parks with cliffs and caves and waterfalls in a section of the Midwest that is otherwise quite flat.

Cherney Maribel Caves preserves a 75-acre section of this Niagara Escarpment.  It is now a Manitowoc County Park and a state natural area.

My visit was on the difficult side.  The park entrance was still locked for the winter and about a half foot of snow still covered the park entrance drive.  So, I had to hike down to the actual park trailhead.  The situation on the trails and staircases was not much better.  Still, I was able to get to the bottom of the cliffs without too much trouble.  The trails at the bottom, however, were sheets of ice, so I made a good decision and left a major hike for another day.

The cliffs that I saw were intriguing.  In many sections of the park, there are caves that can be explored.  Some require tours.

One thing that I loved about the place was the preponderance of cedar trees at the cliff bottom.  These trees have a magical quality about them and they are quite different from the forests on the clifftops.

Next to the actual park is a piece of private property that contains the structure of an old hotel.  There was apparently a fire in the hotel in 1995 that left only the stone walls.  The structure is quite old and there have, apparently, been some fanciful tales spun about the structure. 

Here are some links related to this park:

http://www.maribelcaves.com/img/TourMap2007.pdf

http://www.maribelcaves.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadwho1ders/1209863422/

One interesting sidenote.  The caves at the bottom of the cliff in the park hold many archaeological oddities.  During my visit to Wisconsin, the local newspaper reported that researchers had discovered animal bones in the caves that are between 5,600 and 5,800 years old.  Here are some excerpts and a link:

The bones, discovered at the park’s New Hope Cave between January and February, have been dated to between 5,600 and 5,800 years old, said Dr. John Luczaj, an associate professor of earth science.

“We believe there are older bones yet to be discovered further into the cave from data collected during the exploratory excavations done during the 1990s,” said J.D. Skattebo, a Manitowoc resident and chairman and founder of the Friends of Maribel Caves, in an e-mail.

“If you can identify the fossil, you can understand what the ecology and climate was here at different points in time,” Luczaj said, noting researchers of Brussels Hill Pit Cave in Door County have discovered fossils of rodents that no longer exist in the state.

“We can infer things about climate if we understand how old the deposits are and what was the environment that these organisms lived in,” he said.

“Our goal is to learn and understand why the caves are still there, how did they fill, and when and why,” said Skattebo. “We are also studying the groundwater interaction with the water table.”

http://tinyurl.com/3erk3t

Here’s a pin I placed on Microsoft Virtual Earth showing the exact location of the park:

http://tinyurl.com/48a9wy

During last week’s trip to Wisconsin, I took an hour away from family for a walk to the Manitowoc Breakwater Light.  Parking for this walk is found along Maritime Drive on Manitowoc’s north-side shore.  A marina is just to the south.

The breakwater is a fairly typical piece of construction from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.  A walkway pushes east for several hundred feet towards a dredge spoils area.  This is probably where the USACE places the muck pulled from the Manitowoc harbor.

A wetland area is found in the unfilled portion of this dredge area.  There were many, many birds there during my visit.  As I approached, I noticed a local birder.  I asked if he had seen anything interesting.  He mentioned that he had just seen a common loon swimming by.  There were many, many kinds of gulls in the wetland area as well.

The breakwater structure then moves southward along the interior portion of the dredge disposal area.  From this vantage point, great views of the City of Manitowoc can be obtained.  Manitowoc is a city of roughly 30,000 people.  It’s an old industrial city, but the factories and smokestacks seem in proportion with the other buildings in the area.  It’s just a good, old, settled city.  It is comfortable and the kind of place that I really like.

It was a quite a cold day as I walked.  The winds off the lake were biting.  However, just as I hiked the main causeway east towards the light, the sun began to shine brightly.  This gave a bit of warmth and lit up the view of Manitowoc’s downtown.

The lighthouse itself is quite impressive.  A staircase allows a walker to approach close to the light.  From the base of the lighthouse, it is possible to walk completely around the structure.  Views north towards Two Rivers, WI are possible here.

During the warmer months, this is also a prime location from which to view the approach of the S.S. Badger Carferry.  It steams right into the harbor a few feet from the light.  It is quite a dramatic view.

This walk is also a popular spur from the Mariner’s Trail that connects Manitowoc with Two Rivers.  I have blogged about this trail previously.  You can read that post here:

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/?p=433

This was my route on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.  It is a 0.69 mile route each way.  Round trip is almost a mile and a half:

http://tinyurl.com/685clc

During my recent visit to Wisconsin, I toured a variety of wildlife areas.  Among these was the State of Wisconsin’s Collins Marsh Wildlife Area.  The marsh is located about a half hour west of Manitowoc, WI on County Highway JJ between the small towns of Collins and Valders.

As with most marsh areas, the terrain is pretty much table-top flat.  This allows for great long-distance views, but less-than-wonderful hiking terrain.  Some smallish areas have woodlots.  Other sections have grassland habitat.  But most of the marsh is open water and wetland.  There are seven parking areas in the main section of the Collins Marsh.  Hunting trails lead from these areas into the marsh along two-tracks, unimproved dirt pathways and water-control dikes. 

The most-developed land access is found off of Highway JJ on the south side of the marsh.  From here, a visitor can gain wide views of open-water areas and walk over a fairly impressive water-control feature.  That said, any longer hikes in this 4,200 acre property would likely require some cross-country walking through areas with potential for knee and hip-deep muck.  Most of these hunting pathways can be viewed from the following flashearth.com link:

http://tinyurl.com/68s8jr

A marked snowmobile trail does follow the edge of the Collins Marsh during the wintertime.  During the shoulder season it is possible to follow portions of this route on foot.  The snowmobile trail follows the southern and western edge of the property.

One intriguing aspect of the Collins Marsh is the wildlife center that is housed in a complex on the south side of JJ across from the main water-control feature.  The center rents canoes during the warmer months that allow for exploration of the extensive marsh from the water.  But most intriguing is the lookout tower that rises several hundred feet above the marsh.

I was quite disappointed when I realized that the tower was not open in the late afternoon of my visit.  The tower did seem to have a large nest on its rooftop, so perhaps a large predatory bird is raising young there?  Whatever the case, a visit when this tower is open would allow for a great adventure.

As I scouted the property, I noticed a minivan making a slow circle along with me.  I realized quite quickly that this was a birder looking for interesting species in the marsh.  Besides hunting, birding is likely the most popular activity at the Collins Marsh.  For some great photographs of birds in the marsh, click the link below:

http://tinyurl.com/6q37ou

Here’s the official State of Wisconsin map of the marsh:

http://tinyurl.com/6bo2vm

This is the Manitowoc snowmobile trail map with the general snowmobile routes:

http://tinyurl.com/6rl9q7

Here is a basic overview of the marsh:

http://tinyurl.com/6fncua

The Peninsula Pulse, a newspaper serving Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, has a nice article on receding water levels in Lake Michigan.  Click below to read it:

http://tinyurl.com/ypjwts

 

According to the tourist brochures, Door County in NE Wisconsin has more state parks - five - than any other county in the United States.  They are generally small in size, but quite large in terms of natural beauty.

Potawatomi State Park sits about half-way up the Door Peninsula on Lake Michigan’s Sturgeon Bay.  The “bay” is actually one section of a shipping channel that splits the peninsula in half.  Ships use the channel to save time and distance on routes to Green Bay.  So, the park allows for good freighter viewing.

The park also includes rocky hills and cliffs that are evidence of the peninsula’s limestone base.  Similar cliffs are visible across the bay from one of the park’s many scenic overlooks. 

Eight miles of hiking trails and nine miles of biking trails make parallel figure-eight-style paths across the park’s terrain.  These trails are never terribly far from the park’s circle road, but they allow for a good natural experience.  The Ice Age National Scenic Trail, a “national” trail found completely in the state of Wisconsin, actually begins within this park.

http://www.iceagetrail.org/PDF/4e1_DoorKewaunee250.pdf

There are no sand beaches along Potawatomi State Park’s rocky shore.  But there is a 75-foot-tall observation tower that allows a visitor to see above the trees.  This is THE highlight of the park for me.

The park is only about three miles away from the 16+ mile Ahnapee State rail-trail, so bikers and long-distance hikers can create a good adventure in this area.  It would be wonderful if an off-road trail could connect these two systems with an off-road path.

Click on the links below for more details:

http://tinyurl.com/yovc3v

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/parks/specific/Potawatomi/#trails

During my recent visit to Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to walk a bit at Whitefish Dunes State Park and Cave Point County Park in the beautiful Door Peninsula.  For those who don’t know, Door County is the portion of Wisconsin that sticks out like a finger into Lake Michigan.  It is filled with beautiful parks, pleasant shoreline and plenty of unique and progressive resort towns.

Whitefish Dunes and Cave Point are essentially the same park.  Wisconsin is not blessed with the great dunes of Michigan’s western shore.  So, the medium-sized dunes inside of the park are maintained with great care.  Walkers are only allowed to the top of the largest dune.  The rest are off-limits.  Visitors can stay on the actual beach area or hike the beech forest inland of the dunes.  The park has more than eight miles of hiking trail.

What makes this park extremely interesting to me is the limestone point that juts out into Lake Michigan within the small county park.  This is a portion of the Niagara Escarpment.  I have blogged about this geological phenomena previously.  It is the same rock feature that makes Niagara Falls possible.  And, in fact, the peninsula would probably not exist without this limestone backbone.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/?p=410

In this corner of Wisconsin, the limestone of the escarpment creates a beautiful rocky shore.  Generations of visitors have hunted for brachiopods in this area.

The exposed nature of the point means that waves can be particularly fierce in the park.  Swimmers are advised not to swim in certain areas because of rip tides.  These powerful waves have undercut the limestone in several areas, creating neat sea caves.  Kayakers have a particularly good view of these features.

Together, Whitefish Dunes and Cave Point total about 900 acres in size.  Visitation is day-use only.  That said, there are plenty of opportunities for additional hiking, camping and lodging on the peninsula.  Be aware that Door County is one of Wisconsin’s premier tourist areas and reservations during the peak months can sometimes be difficult to secure.

Check out the links below for maps and additional information:

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/parks/specific/whitefish/

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/parks/specific/whitefish/maps/

http://www.doorcounty.com/outdoor/parks.aspx

 

Most Michiganders are at least a little bit familiar with the S.S. Badger carferry.  It’s the boat that carries cars and people across Lake Michigan from Ludington to Manitowoc and back.  And most people have a gut feeling that it would be cool to take that trip one day.  And I would agree totally.  I have previously blogged about the Badger.  Click on that link below.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/expatriate/?p=203

Of course, the question then arises: What should I do when I get to Wisconsin?  Well, here’s an idea.  How about riding a bike along the Lake Michigan shore for 10 or 12 miles on a nice path between two neat little cities with lighthouses, hotels, endless beaches and several wonderful parks?

If you like that idea, then you’d probably like the combined Mariners and Rawley Point Trails that connect the cities of Manitowoc and Two Rivers, WI with Point Beach State Forest.

The trail begins not too far from the Badger docks in the center of Manitowoc.  Manitowoc is not the prettiest town around, but it does have some nice shops and restaurants.  The city also boasts a submarine and maritime museum.

North of the town, a biker or walker will see miles of beach and crashing waves along the Mariners Trail.  This is not a wilderness bike trail.  The trail sits quite close to state highway 42 and businesses line the roadside across the street from the beaches.  However, this is pleasant development, not unlike what one might see in Tawas City or other pleasant shorefront towns.

At this point, it is probably important to say that the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan is less dramatic than the Michigan side.  Although many of the beaches are sandy, there are few dramatic dunes to climb.  That should not, however, be a deterrant to a visit.  The Wisconsin shoreline has its own charms.

Two Rivers, Wisconsin is the second town on the Mariners Trail.  It is supposedly the place where the ice cream sundae was invented.  I have my doubts, but I really like Two Rivers.  Locals call it “Trivers” and it has a windswept, sleepy quality.  The area has a pleasant downtown, a nice hotel - the Lighthouse Inn - and a state forest.

I will blog about Point Beach State Forest in the future, but I do have to mention that the Rawley Point Trail follows the park boundary for its entire five mile length.  Trail users have several opportunities to jump off the bike and hike several miles of natural-surfaced park trail along some dune areas.  The end point is a beautiful set of beaches on the north end of the park.

Here are some links with trail information and maps:

http://www.tworiverseconomicdevelopment.org/images/bike%20trails.jpg

http://www.tworiverseconomicdevelopment.org/bike.htm