Mill Bluff State Park
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Mill Bluff State Park is a
state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...
in west-central
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, United States. It is located in eastern Monroe and western
Juneau The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( ; tli, Dzánti K'ihéeni ), is the capital city of the state of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the se ...
counties, near the village of Camp Douglas. A unit of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, the park protects several prominent sandstone bluffs to high that formed as
sea stacks A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology ...
12,000 years ago in
Glacial Lake Wisconsin Glacial Lake Wisconsin was a prehistoric proglacial lake that existed from approximately 18,000 to 14,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, in the central part of present-day Wisconsin in the United States. Formation and demise Before t ...
. As a result, these bluffs are steep and angular, dissimilar to the rounded terrain more typical of the eastern half of the United States. The bluffs served as landmarks to both early pioneers and travelers today on
Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...
/ 94, which passes through the park.


Geography

There are ten named bluffs in the park. Mill Bluff, high, is between the interstate and
U.S. Route 12 U.S. Route 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States Numbered Highways, United States highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90) an ...
. The park office is at its foot, and the campground is just to the west. Bee Bluff, although smaller and only high, is the most visible bluff from the interstate, as it stands adjacent to the westbound lanes. To the north is Camels Bluff, two separate outcroppings that together resemble the humps of a camel. Nearby are Devil's Monument and a high pinnacle called Cleopatra's Needle. The other, less accessible bluffs are Round Bluff and Sugar Bowl Bluff to the south, Wildcat Bluff and Bear Bluff to the north, and Long Bluff to the northeast. Also in the northeast is Ragged Rock, an tall former bluff whose protective cap was worn away and is eroding into a conical mound.


Natural history

The bluffs in the park, and others nearby, are formed of
Late Cambrian Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...
sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
. Stratigraphically, the stone of the bluffs is part of the Galesville Member of the Dresbach Group. Sandstone from the Ironton Member of the Franconia Formation, which is more solidly concreted, tops each bluff. This capping layer helped protect the softer stone below it from erosion. Similar structures elsewhere in Wisconsin would have been bulldozed away by glaciers, but these bluffs lie in the
Driftless Area The Driftless Area, a topographical and cultural region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. Never covered by ice during the last ...
; that part of the American Midwest which was never glaciated. The bluffs are all outliers of the Franconia
Cuesta A cuesta (from Spanish ''cuesta'' "slope") is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. In geology the term is more specifically applied to a ridge where a harder sedimentary rock overlies a softer layer ...
to the south. During the last ice age a tongue of ice dammed the
Wisconsin River The Wisconsin River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At approximately 430 miles (692 km) long, it is the state's longest river. The river's name, first recorded in 1673 by Jacques Marquette as "Meskousi ...
, causing the water to back up into Glacial Lake Wisconsin. It is estimated that the lake was about deep in this area, so the taller bluffs became islands while the shorter ones would have been entirely underwater. For the 3000 years of the lake's existence waves eroded the edges of the bluffs, giving them their distinctive steep sides. Thus in a geological sense the bluffs are
sea stacks A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology ...
because they formed in a body of water. In practice the larger formations are described as
mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...
s, the medium-sized ones as
butte __NOTOC__ In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word mea ...
s, and the smallest as a pinnacle. The flat ground in the park consists of finely sorted sediments that settled to the bottom of Glacial Lake Wisconsin.
Glacial erratic A glacial erratic is glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundred ...
s have been found on the former lakebed, which are explained as rocks which were embedded in
iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...
s that melted as they were floating in the lake. The park is mostly forested, with northern pin oak,
jack pine Jack pine (''Pinus banksiana'') is an eastern North American pine. Its native range in Canada is east of the Rocky Mountains from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and the north-central and ...
,
red pine ''Pinus resinosa'', known as red pine (also Norway pine in Minnesota), is a pine native to North America. Description Red pine is a coniferous evergreen tree characterized by tall, straight growth. It usually ranges from in height and in trun ...
,
eastern white pine ''Pinus strobus'', commonly called the eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine (British), and soft pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. It occurs from Newfoundland, Canada west through the Great Lakes ...
, and
white oak The genus ''Quercus'' contains about 500 species, some of which are listed here. The genus, as is the case with many large genera, is divided into subgenera and sections. Traditionally, the genus ''Quercus'' was divided into the two subgenera '' ...
dominant.


Cultural history

Several of the bluffs bear 400-year-old
petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
s shaped like bird tracks, contemporaneous with the Roche-a-Cri Petroglyphs in Roche-a-Cri State Park. The diaries and journals of west-bound settlers often mention these bluffs. A
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
was operated in the vicinity, after which Mill Bluff was named. Mill Bluff and a small area at its foot was proclaimed a state park on August 13, 1936. Mill Bluff State Park was added to the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve in May 1971. The park's boundaries were expanded to include the other bluffs later. In 2002 a portion of the park containing all of the major bluffs received a further level of protection as Mill Bluff State Natural Area.


Recreation

Mill Bluff State Park is open from May to September. Small game hunting is permitted in sections of the park from November 1 to December 15, and deer hunting during a shorter period. The park's small campground has 21 sites, 6 with electrical hookups. Amenities are primitive, with pit toilets and no showers. Potable water is available from
hand pump Hand pumps are manually operated pumps; they use human power and mechanical advantage to move fluids or air from one place to another. They are widely used in every country in the world for a variety of industrial, marine, irrigation and leis ...
s. Swimming is available in a
spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
-fed lake south of the campground. Sand has been added to make a beach. A nature trail circles the base of Mill Bluff. 223 stone steps built by the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
in the 1930s lead to its top. north on County Road W (Funnel Road) is a pullout for the Camels Bluff loop trail, which passes between the two sections of Camels Bluff and leads past the base of Devils Monument and Cleopatra's Needle. Because the bluffs are formed of soft sandstone and geologically unique, all climbing is prohibited.


References

*Black, Robert F. ''Geology of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve of Wisconsin''. National Park Service Scientific Monograph, 1974.

*Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Park brochure, signage, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website.


External links


Mill Bluff State ParkMill Bluff State Natural Area
from the National Park Service {{authority control Driftless Area Ice Age National Scientific Reserve Protected areas established in 1936 Protected areas of Juneau County, Wisconsin Protected areas of Monroe County, Wisconsin Rock formations of Wisconsin Stacks of the United States State parks of Wisconsin Works Progress Administration in Wisconsin 1936 establishments in Wisconsin