Pattison State Park

Time to talk about something outsdoorsy.

Pattison State Park has the highest waterfall in the state of Wisconsin at 165 feet along with 59 campsites, 18 of them electric.  The electric sites are in the inner loop and more closely spaced together than the non-electric ones. The area originally was home to the Ojibwa, also called Chippewa, native american tribe, and in the tumbling waters of the Big Manitou Falls they believed they could hear the voice of the Great Spirit, Gitchi Monido.

Near the base of the falls they quarried sedimentary rock called conglomerate.  They removed fist sized balls of quartz and flaked them into knives, spear points and other tools.

The area reminded me of places we've been in Michigan, with more mosquitoes.  Michigan is the best place in the midwest to escape the plague, in our experience.  Pattison was so bad that even during the day with natural bug repellant on I was swatting like a lunatic and got driven off the trails a few times.  The campground itself is strangely bug free and I'm not sure if that's because it's a little farther from the water or if they have been spraying.

I spent more time than usual hanging out at my site reading "The Dome" by Stephen King.  He has a new book coming out in September that is a follow-up to The Shining. Can't wait to find out what Danny Torrance has been up to!  Sites are mostly a curved pull-through style, showers were clean and hot.

More on the other set of falls in Pattison and my adventures in Duluth and Superior in the next few posts!