A busy weekend- Part 3- Willow River State Park (Wisconsin

As hard as it is to believe we are still talking about Saturday.  After finished our previous adventures we decided that we still had a lot of time and energy left.  So we headed to Wisconsin to visit Willow River State Park.  One of my high school classmates went hiking there a few weeks ago and posted some amazing pictures and that was our inspiration for the trip east now.

We got to the park around 5 pm leaving plenty of time to hike down to the water fall. 

Luke started the hike with us but quickly decided that his legs were exhausted from the long bike ride so he returned to the car and left Marcus and I to complete the hike. 

 

Marcus was pretty into the hike but at the same time he is a 3 year old little boy and acts like one.  He either was running far ahead of me or falling behind because he was dragging his feet on the dirt to make a dirt cloud.  He kept stopping to pick up rocks and put them in his pockets.


Marcus falling behind.

Marcus scuffing his feet.

It didn't take long for us to make our way down to the waterfall.  One thing I really appreciated about the Wisconsin State Park is that the trails frequently had signs posted with maps.  This isn't something you see in MN state parks.

Marcus was really excited to see the falls!  These pictures really don't show how impressive they were

When we crossed over the river we found a large staircase.  The stairs resembled the stairs at a fire tower.  I learned from talking to some one else that there were actually 171 steps to the top.  There was really no stopping Marcus, he was so excited and basically ran to the top of the stairs.  When we got to the top the first thing he said was "Mommy lets go down again" but I convinced him to check out the view and rest a bit before we headed back down.  This was a lot of work but the view as worth the climb.

When we were back on the ground again we spent a little bit of time exploring around the waterfall.

Since it was just me with Marcus I didn't let him get very close to the falls.

When we were done looking at the falls, Marcus was off and running again.  Man that kid is fast!

Rather than take the same 1.5 mile flat path back to the car we decided to take much shorter trail on the map.  Luke moved the car to make things easier.  Well that was really not the best idea.  The shorter trail was also pretty much straight up hill!  It was quite unpleasant.  To make matters a bit more difficult Marcus decided he was tired and needed to be carried.  I almost died!

End result-  This park is pretty and I think we will go back at some point but we will NEVER take the short trail back up the hill again!