Devils Lake State Park

Devils Lake occupies an ancient gap in the Baraboo Range, a place where a river once cut clear through the hard quartzite hills. During the last Ice Age, glaciers advanced against the range and pushed up huge ridges of rock and debris, called terminal moraines, across both ends of that gorge. When the ice melted, those mounds remained as natural dams, plugging the valley at both ends.

With its former river outlet blocked, water gathered in the sealed gorge to form the lake, fed mainly by springs and rain rather than any large stream. That is why the lake is so clear and why it has no major river running in or out. Standing on the bluffs and looking down, you are seeing a fossil river valley turned into a lake by the passage of the ice.

The cliffs and boulders that ring the lake are Baraboo quartzite, among the oldest exposed rock in North America. It began more than a billion and a half years ago as beach sand, later buried, heated, and compressed under immense pressure into an extremely hard rock. The pink and purple hues come from iron in the original sand, and the extreme hardness of the quartzite is why these hills endured while softer rock around them wore flat.

Trails climbing the East and West Bluffs lead through fields of tumbled quartzite talus to the park's famous formations. Balanced Rock rests improbably on a narrow base, and Devils Doorway frames the lake through a natural arch of stacked stone. From these heights the whole lake basin spreads out below, a view that has drawn hikers and photographers for well over a century.

Devils Lake lies at the heart of Ho-Chunk homeland, and the Ho-Chunk Nation has deep and enduring roots throughout this part of southern Wisconsin. The lake was a place of spiritual meaning, and the name Devils Lake is a European rendering that misses the older understanding of it as a powerful and sacred site rather than a fearful one.

Ancestral peoples built effigy mounds within what is now the park, low earthen forms shaped like birds and other animals, which survive along the lakeshore. These mounds are sacred and protected, and visitors are asked to view them from the trails and leave them undisturbed. They are a living reminder that this landscape was honored and worked for thousands of years before it became a park.

The woods and bluffs hold white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, foxes, and, along the ledges, sunning reptiles and the occasional soaring turkey vulture. In spring and fall the ridgelines funnel migrating hawks and eagles, and the lake draws waterfowl. Below the surface, the clear spring-fed water holds fish, and the shallows near the beaches teem with life in summer.

The park is a place for all seasons. Spring brings wildflowers and rushing color to the woods, summer fills the beaches and cliff trails, and autumn sets the bluffs ablaze in red and gold, one of the most photographed fall scenes in the state. Winter empties the trails and dusts the cliffs and frozen lake with snow, offering quiet and stark beauty to those who brave the cold.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.