Wisconsin, Part 4 - Devil's Lake State Park [240701]

We spent our final day in Wisconsin exploring Devil's Lake State Park.

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After looking at the map we decided to walk to the East Bluff Trailhead from camp instead of driving, which added an extra 0.5 mile to our hike in each direction.  The trail starts in forest . . .

. . . and then climbs upward with a trail surface that's a 50/50 mix of broken asphalt and stone steps.  Along the way we spied this potentially interesting looking crevice / cave in the rocks . . .

. . . but the opening ended up not being that deep (although it did have kind of a cool-looking ceiling).

The "official" park map had photos of some of the notable rock formations in the park, but oddly didn't mark their exact locations on the map itself - so we used Google Maps to try to estimate our distance to the next "point of interest" (and make sure that we didn't accidentally miss it).  The first such POI was particularly notable because the park map had the rock named as "Elephant Rock", but Google Maps had it named as "Bison Rock".  Having seen the rock up close and personal now, we tend to agree with the Google interpretation.  Either way, it was a wise, gentle beast that longed to be pet.

At the top of the bluff the trail leveled off somewhat and had transitioned into mostly packed dirt.

We eventually got to the portion of the trail where breaks in the trees allowed for some good views of Devil's Lake itself.

Somewhere across the lake was another rock formation that Google called out as "Cleopatra's Needle".  It's apparently very popular with climbers, and as near as we can figure it's one of these.  Unfortunately we were too far away - and at the wrong angle to see the needle's characteristic "eye" - to know for sure.

We took a side trip onto the Balanced Rock Trail to see the eponymous rock.  Unfortunately, that trail headed downward so we lost a lot of elevation that we'd need to make back up to return to the East Bluff Trail afterwards.

"Balanced Rock" itself was swarming with climbers using it as a starting point for a climb down the cliff face when we arrived.  (Why some folks would think that a high traffic'ed famous landmark is a good thing to tie your climbing ropes around - we'll never understand.)  We had to be careful to avoid their web of ropes when approaching the rock.

We mentioned having to climb back up to resume the original trail again, right? 😉

Another side spur trail brought us to the park's signature rock formation:  the "Devil's Doorway".

Many of the other hikers who came by delighted in climbing up into the Doorway itself, and even crawling through a small opening in it that makes a right-angle turn to become the hole seen behind Christine's head below.  The passageway sounded potentially small, though, since some of the "fluffier" hikers making the attempt almost got stuck.  And one of the dogs who was hoisted up to the doorway for the a photo op definitely did NOT like being up there!  We decided to forego the extra rock scramble and crawling experience.  😉

We hiked to the end of the East Bluff Trail, but there was nothing particularly notable on the remainder before we turned around and retraced our path back.  On the way back, we stopped by the one-room Visitor Center - which ended up not being all that interesting nor informative.  However, Devil's Lake State Park boasts a small collection of effigy mounds: two of which (the "Lynx Mound" and "Conical Mound") happen to be on the pathway between the Visitor Center and the Nature Center.

There were also these interesting little "bat houses" set up along the path.

The Nature Center ended up being much larger and more interesting than the Visitor Center was.  The main floor had a number of nature displays - including a few live reptiles like the Ornate Box Turtle, Stinkpot Turtle, and American Toad below - while the lower floor had a gallery of historic photos.

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By the time we made it back to camp we had travelled a total of 5.2 miles with a reported cumulative elevation gain of 1172 feet.  After a late lunch and showers, we finished building the cab window bug screens that we had started the previous evening.

Through judicious measuring and cutting, we managed to make TWO screens out of a SINGLE piece of gutter guard material - and have enough left over to make a small work of "modern art" too!  😜

The bugs were still being blissfully cooperative, so we were able to enjoy another evening of dining al fresco.

Tomorrow would be another "travel day" . . .