Willow River State Park

Luke, Lex and I went to a new state park for us in search of a waterfall...we even had to go to Wisconsin to see it...Willow River State Park.

Fortunately, it was just across the border, a few miles from Hudson.  There was an okay nature center, with a fox snake and a few turtles.  The other animals were all stuffed.  But the goal was to go see the falls, so we drove to the parking area indicated on the map and found a 16 stall parking area completely full of vehicles.  The ranger there gave us the other option of driving back to the nature center and hiking 1.5 miles to the falls (a 3 mile round trip hike)...so we were off...

It was a paved trail for almost all of the walk, not exactly difficult.  When we got there we saw mass chaos in the falls themselves...never even seen anything like it at Gooseberry...people all over jumping from one level to another, dragging young kids through the several inches of moving water...Wisconsin...

But it was a nice looking series of waterfalls...

The kids liked it...

If you're willing to climb a big set of stairs, you get an overview of the scene below...

It was easier going back down than it was going up...

There were a ton of people there, both in the water and on the bridge overlooking the falls...

The nature center was located next to this huge swampy area filled with vegetation with a small river flowing through the middle, not particularly pleasant to look at, but it turns out it used to be a lake with a nice swimming beach...

Turns out that the lake was formed by a dam holding back the river and in 2012 it was found that the dam could potentially fail soon.  So the decision was made to breach the dam and draw down the lake.  The park obviously lost a signature feature of the area and it's been decided recently to re-construct the dam to bring back the lake...

It was a good day, but Wisconsin State Parks are nothing like Minnesota's...we are definitely spoiled here...