High Cliff State Park

As promised, I'm posting today about our trip to High Cliff State Park in April, 2010. Wayne had broken his tibia and fibula slipping on ice in our driveway in February, and had been pretty much housebound ever since. We hadn't bought our fifth wheel yet, so, we took out my parents' Laredo for a 4 day weekend.  Since Wayne was incapacitated, waste management was up to me.

  We were surprised when we got there at how large and well spaced the sites were. The campground has 112 sites, 32 with electric, and many amenities including a shower building.  High Cliff is located along the shore of Lake Winnebago, and also atop the Niagara Escarpment. The Niagara Escarpment, often called "the ledge," was formed by the settling and hardening of limy ooze at the bottom of the Silurian Sea, which covered much of Wisconsin nearly 400 million years ago. It stretches from New York through Illinois.

Most of the land in the park used to belong to a limestone company and some remnants of the kiln operation still remain. The State of Wisconsin took ownership when Western Lime closed in 1956.


 

Wayne was content sitting at the picnic table with a beer, watching the squirrels and woodpeckers at work, but I hit the trails as much as I could. The trail system there is incredibly good, though I did get a little turned around on the outer horse trails when I went for a run on our last morning there.  The easiest trail is the Red Bird trail which circles the campground area and travels along the top of the escarpment. It was especially beautiful at sunset and as I mentioned in my last post this is the first place that I saw may apple growing below the trees.

There is also a stairway that takes you to trails going down the escarpment.  I saw lots of dragonflies and even a few chipmunks on this trail which eventually winds its way down to the lime kiln area.

I also saw quite a few turkey vultures, even coming upon one in the middle of the trail getting ready to take advantage of a raccoon carcass. Once he saw me he took off but he and his buddies didn't go far, just circled above me relentlessly until I left them to it. This is a really great campground, and I hope we get back to it sometime soon so that Wayne can explore it with me...and so I can bring a lens to capture those turkey vultures!

Wayne's pant leg is cut off to accommodate his walking cast he was still using