Autumn Colors #4 - Devil's Lake

Intro:  This is the Fourth in the series – Autumn Colors

 The long hike up the ridge and rocks begins -

though it does not look it at this point --

pretty difficult at times.

Humm - a friend along the way!

Devil’s Lake is Wisconsin’s largest and busiest state park, with over 10,000 acres and more than 29 miles of hiking trails.  There are some great views both in the forest and looking over the 500 foot tall bluffs at the lake.  There are also Indian Burial Mounds – a sacred site.

 Beauty in this tree.

spectacular views

The area was formed between 1.4 and 1.6 billion years ago. The rocks you walk on were here long before the dinosaurs. These rocks were part of the floor of an ancient ocean. The waves in the rock patterns are the ripple marks of that ocean bed.

About 500 million years ago a second great ocean flooded Wisconsin.  Interesting, North America was rotated 90 degrees clockwise from its present position and lay along the equator. It was then part of the southern tropics!  At a later day, about 18,000 years ago there came the Ice Age which sat here for 8,000 years.  The freezing and thawing during that period forms the rock formations such as the Devil’s Door.

 I did not check to see if anyone was home here!

 This is Devil's Door - way at the top of the climb -- 

formed by the glacier.

One last view - beautiful - now time to descend.