31 October 2009

Ice Age Trail - Devils Lake

A nutrition seminar took me to Madison for the weekend. Because the seminar didn't start until 1 pm, I was looking for spots to run on Saturday morning, and settled on a trip to Devils Lake. Local trail runners, PUT IT ON YOUR LIST! IT'S THE HOME OF AMAZING TRAILS! A simple search of "Devils Lake" will return some wonderful pictures of the area, and I also occasionally took out the iPhone to grab some shots of the trails I spent a little under 3 hours touring on Saturday morning (I thought it would only be around 2 hours, but my math was WAY off).
Next July, consider the Dances With Dirt trail races. While I realize I'll have a 2 month old at that point, I'm going to try my best to be there. The trails are the best I've ever run...although traversing some of the rocks and bluffs during a morning of snow and rain was very dangerous.
I parked at Parfrey's Glen, then ran a road for about 3 miles and picked up the Ice Age Trail, which I followed back to my car.

This is a view from the West Bluff back to the East Bluff. I ascended and descended both while following the IAT around the lake.
That sign reads "Follow Trail" with an arrow. By "trail," they mean a bunch of sorta-flat rocks that lead down the bluff.
A picture from the top of the East Bluff, to the South of the lake. The fall colors are long gone, but still, it stopped me in my tracks.
A view from the East Bluff to the West Bluff. The bluff-top portion of the trails are blacktopped, but still pretty much single track. I'd prefer dirt :)

I parked about 3 miles East of the park and ran the IAT into (and up up up) the Devils Lake portion. This is a view from the approach.


As usual, pictures don't do it justice. You'll have to take my word for it, though...it's worth the trip!

10 comments:

SteveQ said...

First!

SteveQ said...

More later.

Jess said...

Glad you had such a great run! It looks like a beautiful spot!

Georgia Snail said...

Great photo's!

SteveQ said...

Guess I've got nothing to say for once, except to suggest baby names: Condoleezza Hillary for a girl, Farrakhan Biden for a boy.

Anonymous said...

Nice run! Funny, I was just staring at the ad in ultrarunning for the dances with dirt series next year.

Runner Tammy said...

What a beautiful course (well except the huge boulder field). Guess my sissy running legs will not be going there; however, my super strong hiker legs might:-)

Brad Poppele said...

Sounds like fun. I might have to go and check it out. Good call on the Yankees in 6.

SteveQ said...

I just checked the "F U, Penguin" blog - it has 8103 followers!

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