"Baxter's Hollow features a scenic gorge cut through Baraboo quartzite by Otter Creek, a fast, clear, nearly undisturbed stream flowing over the large quartzite boulders. Although it supports trout, Otter Creek is better known for its diverse and unique aquatic insect fauna. Cold air drainage has permitted a white pine dominated forest to persist near the stream."
-Wisconsin DNR
Fog rises from southern Wisconsin valleys in the driftless area (un-glaciated) following the approach of a cold front and afternoon June rains.
Sunset hues over the rolling hills of south-west Wisconsin countryside on a humid June afternoon.
The sun sets over Pleasant Valley Conservancy, with Blue Mound State Park visible several miles to the south.
A glacial mound and oak savanna silhouetted against a spring ski at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy in Middleton, Wisconsin.
The Black River State Forest, established in 1957 includes approximately 67,000 acres in Jackson County. The area is unique among the state forests mainly because of its geological features. The Forest lies on the edge of the glaciated central plain east of the rough coulee region or driftless area of Wisconsin. If you hike the nature trail to the top of Castle Mound, one can observe what was once the bed of glacial Lake Wisconsin. Unglaciated buttes, sandstone hills, and castellated bluffs such as Castle Mound dot the vast forest landscape. -Wisc. DNR
One of the many dozens of flowages in the 68,000-acres of the Black River State Forest.
For the last 400 million years, most of Wisconsin has remained above sea level, and erosion has carved southwestern Wisconsin into its present much-branched, tree-like drainage pattern of rivers, hills, and valleys. Hundreds of miles of sandstone and limestone have been remove from southern Wisconsin by the streams during the 400 million year erosion cycle.
Southwestern Wisconsin has had nearly all its Niagara dolomite removed. It remains in this region only as tiny remnants atop Blue Mound, Platte Mound, Belmont Mound, and Sinsinawa Mound. If it were not for the hard Niagara dolomite capping, these mounds would have been cut down to the level of the surrounding lowlands. Blue Mound stands hundreds of feet above the surrounding countryside.
Deep down under the Blue Mounds is granite bedrock, the "roots" of mountains that stood here more than 2 billion years ago. The mountains were eroded down to a rolling granite plain.
As Wisconsin warped up and down repeatedly, extensive inland oceans alternately flowed into and retreated from the area. In the process, sand and soft limy sediments were deposited on top of the granite. The first sea covered the area more than 1 billion years ago, and the last (the Silurian Sea) about 400 million years ago.
"Fifteen thousand years ago during the Wisconsin Glaciation, ice covered the Rock River Basin. The continental glacier sculptured a rolling landscape that supported thickly wooded lands interspersed with oak-savannah prairies, large wetland complexes and numerous large and small lakes. Today, threading through this rich, ecologically diverse landscape is the Rock River and its major tributaries, the Crawfish, Beaver Dam, Oconomowoc, Bark, and Yahara rivers, and Turtle Creek.
The Rock River Basin covers 3,777 square miles and is located in ten counties: most of Dodge, Dane, Rock and Jefferson and parts of Washington, Fond du Lac, Walworth, Columbia, Waukesha and Green Lake counties.
Wisconsin archaeological records indicate that areas of the Rock River Basin were inhabited by the Woodland culture 3000 years ago. These people were 'mound builders' who left their mark on the landscape near waterways by building effigy mounds shaped in the forms of birds and animals. At one time the mounds were prolific, numbering more than 1,500 in Jefferson County alone."
The ridge extending to the left from the bluffs on the right was formed from the deposition of sand, rocks, and gravel at the edge of a continental glacier. Known as a 'terminal moraine', it marks the furthest extent of a mile-thick sheet of ice, and formed one of two natural dams which created the current Devils Lake.
-Taken at sundown in Roznos Meadow, east of Devils Lake State Park
A peaceful wooded section of the Ice Age Trail within the Kettle Moraine State Forest
Taken from the trail-less 3500 acre forest of Devils Nose State Natural Area; Devils Lake State Park, Wisconsin
A rising moon illuminates restored prairie in this photo taken well after sundown at Pleasant Valley Conservancy SNA.
Long-exposure of a segment of restored oak savanna, taken after sunset under a mostly full moon and twilight.
One of my favorite shots from the weekend, took this one while we were attempting some nighttime headlamp fishing; to which we had no success.
-Rock Island State Park, Door County, Wisconsin
Looking over a portion of the 60,000 acre Porcupine Mountain Wilderness Area, while on a 48-mile backpacking loop.
48-mi backpacking trip in the Porcupine Mountain State Wilderness Area, Upper Peninsula, Michigan
Native dune grasses protecting the shifting sands of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
