Natural Bridge State Park

Tucked mid way up a bluff in central Wisconsin, stands the largest natural arch in the Midwestern United States. And slightly hidden at the base of the arch, nestled in an unsuspecting crook is a hollowed out cave that may be one of the oldest known human inhabited places in all of North America.

Your cost to see both? The price of a Wisconsin State Park pass.

Buy one here: http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/admission.html

Discovered by Native Americans, some 12,000 years ago, the sweeping sandstone arch that comprises the center point of Natural Bridge State Park, is a spectacle to behold.

My first trip to the park was in the late summer of 2008. Where I had heard of the arch is somewhat vague but never the less, it had been on my list for some time. Turning west off of Hwy 12, just south of Baraboo, I pointed my Subaru towards the rugged sandstone hills of central Wisconsin. Thousands of years ago, a giant piece of iron, almost 2000 feet in height and some 200 miles to the north-west that later became known as Rib Mountain, split the massive glacier that had pushed its way down from Hudson Bay in Canada. The result was this glacier-less area, where the landscape remained intact, resembling what it had for millions of years. In fact, some of the world’s oldest fragments can be found in boulders only 30 miles north of here at Devils Lake State Park.

The hustle and the bustle of the highway is quickly a memory in the rear view mirror as Hwy C becomes more narrow and winding. Old generational farms stand as reminders of a salt of the earth time, where relatives of the first pioneers to this area still work the land.

This has been a warm summer. The A/C in the Outback doesn’t work anymore and I’m thankful for the breeze coming in the windows as are my dogs in the back. It’s hard to keep my car between the lines on the road and there’s no chance I can do anything that resembles the speed limit. There’s too much to see. There’s nowhere in the United States like Wisconsin. I try and equate this landscape and these small knit communities to something in Pennsylvania perhaps. But the culture here is different. Its more independent; folks more friendly too.

I pass my first Amish wagon not more than three miles from Hwy 12. The driver gives me a gentle wave as I pass. I think to myself, what a wonderful existence. Such a connection to the land, such a dependence on everything that makes sense. I peer in the mirror and see the bobbling heads of the family grow smaller as I drive on.

The park comes suddenly. Had I been in a deeper state of fantasy, I could have easily passed it, at which point I would of ended up in the town of Leland, only a brief ¼ mile down the road. Where I would have stopped into Sprecher’s Bar and perhaps bought a new rifle while gulping down a hoppy elixir from a local brewery. Gotta love Wisconsin. (See my article on Sprecher’s Bar on my blog)

But I do see the entrance in time and make a hard right turn and drive only a hundred feet or so and park. The lot is small….and its empty. There are newer restrooms to the right just as you begin the hike to the arch. I stop and use them. They don’t flush, but I delight in the simplicity of it.

I press on, up the hill, digging in my heals and just catching my stride; I’ve gone no more than a few hundred feet, in my estimate, when I’m startled by the immense arch standing shadowing the forest before me.

It is a spectacle that doesn’t disappoint in the least. I stand with it before me, taking in the shear size. The northern face of the arch stands nearly 70 feet in the air, the backside of the arch, perhaps 35 feet. It is nearly 100 feet in length and stands in monolith fashion. I walk around the front of the arch to its eastern edge. I begin the easily climb to the main arch. The bridge is about four feet across and narrows in its span across to the other side. As I begin to walk across, the bridge thins considerably more than I had estimated. I’m standing now on a mere 16 inches or so of sandstone with a forbidding 70 foot drop to my right. The pucker factor intensifies and I find myself slightly frozen in place. I’ve stood on mountains in Colorado that far exceeded the circumstances I find myself in here, but for some reason I find this more than what I had anticipated. I turn, in an about-face and scurry back across the arch to its origin.

The arch is surrounded by scraggles of Glossy Buckthorn bushes and other thorn bushes unnative to the state and listed on the evasive species list. I wack threw the vines to the lower, north-west corner of the arch where I find an ancient washout in the standstone, that some might call a cave, but is more of a slight cavern running horizontal into the base of the arch. Its perhaps six feet high, no more and the ceiling lessons as it deepens into the sandstone. This is one of the oldest known inhabited places in all of North America. Archaeologists estimate early humans had been using this as a shelter beginning some 12,000-15,000 years ago. As I stand inside, my surroundings become eerily silent, the wind dies down and the forest seems to hush itself. I suffer a presence and energy I find unable to explain and stand for a moment to just soak it in before I quickly exit through the widening.

Outside the cave, I stand in silence for a few moments and admire nature’s handywork before picking up pace and heading back to the car.

My ride home finds my mind in a comfortable contemplation of my visit. What a lonely but sublime place, tucked so neatly back in the country I think to myself. I still feel an energy that has made itself at home is my psyche as I drive. The ancestors of our humankind lineage may have been standing right with me today, if only in spirit. The cracked and waving pavement of road stretches out in front of me and the motor wines. The setting sun sits behind me as I roll along towards home.