Wyalusing State Park

We took our family camping at Wyalusing State Park. The park is where the Mississippi River and Wisconsin River meet in the Southwest corner of the state. We camped at site 236 in the Homestead campground. It was a nice site at the end of the cul-de-sac. We also drove through the Wisconsin Ridge campground. Those sites were more exposed generally. Some had steep drop-offs from the campsites. That always makes me a bit nervous due to my fear of heights.

While we there, we saw some CCC era infomration in a small building. There were photos and paragraphs of text describing what the experience was like during that time. We did the interpretive hike on the Sugar Maple Trail. It was a bit strenuous. We should have brought water and snacks for Annabelle. We saw Pictured Rock Cave.

Another hike we did was Sand Cave Trail. There were two caves. The first cave we saw was bigger than the second. The larger one we could walk underneath. The smaller one we viewed from afar from a higher vantage point.

Nearby one of the overlooks in the park is the Bluff Trail. We walked down this trail where there was another cave. I didn’t go all the way to this cave however. There were steep steps and we were concerned that our dog Buster couldn’t make it down. Linda and Annabelle saw this cave. It turned out to be the best one, you could actually crawl inside. Basically what you’d think a cave would look like.

Wyalusing is a Dark Sky Park. They have astronomy talks there. We didn’t get to check it out but it would be fun to do that sometime. We learned a lot about the glacial activity that altered the landscape. The Mississippi River was originally the Wyalusing River. It flowed east until glaciers changed the flow.

We did a short hike to see Indian Mounds on Sentinel Ridge Trail. The mounds had beautiful wild flowers growing on them. Mounds were also marked behind our campsite on the map. We might not have known they were there without an obvious marker though.

Poison Ivy was at the park along with a couple other poisonous plants. We were cautious to avoid them.

The park had a playground area with a concessions stand. We stopped there both Saturday and Sunday. Annabelle got to play with other kids and we treated ourselves to dippin’ dots after hiking both days. We bought ice there too. The store supports the Friends of Wyalusing.