Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For the more ambitious, a number of trails wind throughout the area. Mountain bikers
actually have a trail just for themselves, unsurprisingly, as this is in close proximity to the
Military Ridge State Trail.
Cave of the Mounds
Cave of the Mounds
(608/437-3038,
www.caveofthemounds.com
,
9am-6pm daily sum-
mer, shorter hours mid-Mar.-mid-Nov. outside summer, $17) is yet another residual of the
eons-old limestone cementation process; another cave, Lost River Cave, exists near Blue
Mound State Park.
Oddly, though the area above the subterranean caverns was settled, mined, plowed, and
grazed starting as far back as 1828 (making the homestead the oldest in the county), these
caves weren't discovered until 1939. It took until the 1980s for geologists of the U.S. De-
partment of the Interior to declare it a National Natural Landmark. It's better known as the
“jewel box” of large caverns, neither as large nor as famous as others, but, as the Chicago
Academy of Sciences called it, “the significant cave of the upper Midwest.”
bike path near Blue Mounds
