West Bluff and East Bluff Trails, Devil's Lake State Park, Baraboo, Wisconsin

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/11/2025	4.1 miles	2 hours 8 minutes	651'	2.3 mph	156.1 miles

Parking: 

• North side of the lake, near the entrance station. $16 day pass for out of state visitors.

Map:

• Devils_Lake_Map 2019 They will provide a printed one at the visitor center.

Directions:

• Take the East Bluff Trail. Turn right and descend steeply down the Potholes Trail. Turn right onto the Grottos Trail. Turn left onto the boardwalk. Turn right onto the West Bluff Trail and follow it back to the parking area.

We left Wausau, Wisconsin and headed south. We ended up stopping at a vegan restaurant in Baraboo for lunch. Then onto Devil's Lake State Park. When I saw photos of this park, I knew I wanted to go. There is a large lake surrounded by cliffs with interesting rock formations. Part of the hike we did was on the Ice Age Trail, one of our country's long-distance trails - planned to be 1,200 miles, so far 675 miles have been completed. 

I read that parking can be an issue, especially on weekends and especially in May. Today is a Sunday in May. We were able to find parking we just had to drive around a bit. This park has tons of parking; however, it is a madhouse. So many people. It was 80 degrees out. There were people swimming, kayaking, picnicking, playing ball (makes Krumm so excited), hiking, etc. Glen figured once we got out on the hiking trails away from the trailhead, we'd leave the madness behind. The trails were crowded too. I mean, I can see why, this is a beautiful park. The UP in Michigan didn't have any leaves on trees, and all of a sudden, we are surrounded by green.

I decided we should do the East Bluff Trail first as it was marked more difficult than the West Bluff Trail. It's always nicer to do the harder part of a hike first. We had a pretty good climb up to a ridge, tiring us out some. Once on the ridge, you have views of the lake and various interesting rock formations along the cliffs. We had to descend down the ridge - there were various options. We passed by the first option and decided to go down the second option - the Pothole Trail. I figured how bad could it be? Well, it was bad. It was 0.3 miles very steeply down on rock steps the whole way. The steps aren't even of course. And one type of rock they used to build the steps was slippery. The ground was dry, but the rocks felt like polished marble - sometimes your foot would slip as you were pushing off of them. I have a lot of PTSD about falling down steep declines, so that didn't help. I considered going down on my butt for the whole way. I worked really hard on staying focused, going very slowly, watching my footing very carefully. I broke no bones, but I just could not wait to be off that trail. It's not a trail I would do again, at least not downhill. Uphill would be tough, but at least I wouldn't worry about falling. No photos, because I needed my hands to help me get down. At the bottom, I bought an ice cream at their concession stand to celebrate getting down that hill.

Once on the bottom, we headed towards the boardwalk. This is where we let Krumm off leash to swim. Happy Krumm. This park actually marks an off-leash dog swimming area on their map. There is an off leash & an on-leash dog swimming area from what I read. Well - the off leash area is right next to a road, so no way am I doing that. I, like others, let their dog swim off the boardwalk, which I think might be the on-leash dog swimming area. Krumm is well behaved and ignores everyone, so no one minded. He had fun but he got chilled earlier than I expected given how hot it was today.

Glen offered to hike back to our car and drive to our swimming spot. My hip was hurting pretty bad today. It was going to take him a couple hours he figured to get back to me. I decided to hike out with him. I thought the West Bluff Trail was going to be easy, but again we had a climb up the ridge and then a steepish descent, but not as bad as the East Bluff Trail. We walked through the picnic/beach area, passing by lots of kids playing with balls. Krumm soooo excited again.

After our hike we still had a lot of driving to do. We ended up in Davenport, Iowa at 10 pm. Unfortunately, I never ended up having cheese curds in Wisconsin. People eat fried cheese curds, I think? Not something I've ever had.

Getting the feet wet before our hike

Kayaks on the lake