Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rustic Roads also run within these parameters. The shorter
Tunnelville Road
begins along
WIS 131 south of La Farge and twists for almost three miles to Highway SS. Spectacular
countryside wildflowers line Tunnelville, and there are few people here. More popular is
thenine-mile trailincludingLowerRidge,SandHill,andDutchHollowRoads,alloffWIS
131. Dutch Hollow Road is right at the southern tip of Ontario-Amish country. Fantastic
old-style architecture—a couple of Vernon County's 15 round barns—can be seen all along
thisroad,aswellassomecontourfarming.HighwayD,eastofCashton,hasthe
Old Coun-
try Cheese
factory (S510 Hwy. D, 608/654-5411,
www.oldcountrycheese.com
)
, a cooper-
ative of hundreds of Amish farmers.
WIS 131 runs the course of the Kickapoo River watershed south from Tomah through
Wilton, past the river's headwaters north of Ontario and Wildcat Mountain State Park,
and into undiscovered federal “wild” lands before hitting its southern half around Soldiers
Grove, a total of 65 miles. The Kickapoo River, which doesn't stretch even as far north as
Tomah when you total the serpentine bights and watery switchbacks, tops out at 120 miles.
Thus it has become known as “the crookedest river in the nation,” as one soon discovers
when canoeing.
TheoriginalinhabitantsofmoststretchesweretheAlgonquianKikapu.Theword
ki-ka-
pu
translates roughly as “one who travels there, then here,” describing quite well both the
rollingriveraswellastheperipateticNativeAmericantribe(whichwoundupintheTexas-
Mexico region).
Note that the area has seen road improvements along WIS 131, making it safer to drive.
MM
Kickapoo Valley Reserve
Many hydrophiles would finger the Kickapoo as numero uno in the state for paddlers. The
water is always low, challenging canoeists only during springtime meltoffs or summer de-
luges, and the scenery is superb—craggy, striated bluffs with pockets of goat prairie, oak
savanna, and pine. The Ocooch Mountains along the west fork are legendarily gorgeous.
EscapethemaddingcrowdandheadsouthtoLaFargeandbeyondtoalmost9,000acres
of the
Kickapoo Valley Reserve.
For two decades, the feds had hemmed and hawed and
vacillated over whether to dam the Kickapoo near La Farge, hoping to put a damper on
spring floods and create a lake and recreation area. Opposed by some environmentalists,
the project never got far off the ground; 1,100 acres were returned to the Ho Chunk Na-
tion and the rest back to nature. Remember: Pockets of private land do exist everywhere,
