Fall color hikes abound in Winona MN area

Great River Bluffs State Park

There’s no better way

to experience autumn colors in the Winona, Minnesota, area than

a hike.

The brilliant yellows, oranges and red of maples to the scarlet

and russets of oaks...

the crisp, fresh autumn air and the last warm

rays of sunlight before winter arrives...the crunch of fallen leaves and acorns beneath your boots...stopping to enjoy a warm mug of apple cider or a caramel apple pulled from your backpack – it all calls for an afternoon on the trail.

Fortunately, there are plenty of great autumn trails around Winona to hike. Some are right out your back door, while some are a day trip that you can do in an afternoon.

Great River Bluffs State Park (Winona)
A great view of the Mississippi River awaits at the Great River Bluffs State Park on the 2.2-mile round trip Kings Bluff Trail. After heading through a forest of white pine and the yellow to maroon-colored leaves of ash trees, the trail arrives at Kings Bluff, which offers a spectacular vista of the Mississippi River valley below, a blue ribbon surrounded by the yellows of various birch and aspen. From Interstate 90 near the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, take County Road 3 north. Turn right/east onto Kipp Drive, which becomes Park Road. About two miles in, look for a small parking lot on the left/northwest. The trail heads northwest from the lot.

John A. Latsch State Park (Winona)
A beautiful view of the Mississippi River resplendent in fall colors awaits each autumn at John A. Latsch State Park. The 1-mile round trip Riverview Trail heads to the top of Mount Charity, a bluff alongside Ol’ Man River. The trail consists of nearly 600 steps that head up a deep ravine in the bluff. During the autumn, the bluffside brims with color: the yellows of birch, ironwood, black walnut, and elm; the oranges and scarlets of oaks; the golds, oranges and reds of maples; and the olive of basswood. Evergreen cedar accents the harvest hues. From Winona, take U.S. Hwy. 61 north. In about 10 miles, turn left/southwest into the park. There’s no entry fee, and the parking lot is wedged between the highway and the bluff. The trail heads south from the lot.

Perrot State Park (Trempealeau, Wis.)
Great views of the Mississippi River await at Perrot State Park. The 2.4-miles round trip Brady’s Bluff West and East trails are particularly impressive in autumn. Start up Brady’s Bluff West Trail and pause at the hill’s summit, which offers impressive views of the Mississippi River Valley, a brilliant blue ribbon through a forest of golden leaves. Descending the summit via the Brady’s Bluff East Trail heads through a woods of russet-leaved oaks. From Wis. Hwy. 35 in Trempealeau, take 10th Street west. Turn right/north onto Park Road, which becomes South Park Road. Park in the lot before the boat launch; the trailhead is on the opposite side of the road.

Whitewater State Park (Elba)
Hikers can head through and below a maple and oak forest at Whitewater State Park. The 4.5-mile round trip Dakota Trail crosses the ridge above the Whitewater River, where you walk beneath the harvest-hued canopy, then descends to the waterway for a great view of the gold, orange, scarlet and tan trees covering the hill. From Winona, take U.S. Hwy. 14 west. In St. Charles, turn right/north onto Minn. Hwy. 74. Use the Nature Store parking lot.

Great River State Trail (Midway, Wis.)
Hikers can walk alongside and cross a stream via five different bridges on the Halfway Creek Trail. The 3.4-mile trail connects Holmen to the Great River State Trail in Midway. Maple, aspen, oak and the occasional pine line the creek, making for a colorful autumn walk. Start at Halfway Creek Park in Holmen; the trailhead is on the park’s southwest side. One good turnaround spot to avoid crossing under U.S. Hwy. 53 is the connector trail to Judith Court for a 1.13-mile round trip and three bridge crossings.

Root River State Trail (Houston)
Among the most scenic hikes in Minnesota is the Root River State Trail, and that’s especially so in autumn. A range of fall colors line the trail, thanks to the great variety of trees that grow here. Riverside features black ash, willow, box elder, cottonwood and elm while the highlands boast maples, basswood and oaks. A great segment of the trail to hike begins in Houston and runs 2.3 miles west to a picnic area for a 4.6-mile round trip. From Minn. Hwy. 76 in Houston, turn north on Plum Street and park at the Houston Nature Center. The nature center as well as the International Owl Center just two blocks away are well worth a visit, and if you have little ones, they’ll love the playground near the trailhead.

Wabasha Riverwalk (Wabasha)
One of the best urban areas in the Midwest to enjoy fall colors in the small town of Wabasha. For seven weeks from September through October, the small town celebrates a harvest festival. You can enjoy the festivities and take a nice stroll on the 0.8-mile round trip riverwalk. The Wisconsin shoreline on the opposite side of the Mississippi River is lit up in golden hues, the perfect match to the streets’ autumn decorations. To reach the riverwalk, park in downtown Wabasha. Finding a spot on Big Jo Alley near Pembroke Avenue is best, as the National Eagle Center is at the corner of those two streets. The riverwalk is behind the center.

Trail crosses rare maar in northern Arizona

Rattlesnake Crater

Day hikers can walk through a rare volcanic crater known as a maar in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest.

The 1.5-miles round trip Rattlesnake Crater Trail is more of a walkabout than a designated path. The crater is part of Arizona’s massive San Francisco Volcanic Field.

Sprawling across 1.856 million acres, Coconino National Forest is largely centered on Flagstaff. It’s popular with multiple hiking trails, especially north of Flagstaff where it sits between the city and the Grand Canyon. Rattlesnake Canyon marks the national forest’s most interesting feature closest to Petrified Forest National Park.

To reach the trailhead, in Winona, Ariz., from Interstate 40, exit north onto Townsend-Winona Road. Turn left/east onto Angell Road/Coconino County Hwy. 394. The beat-up road parallels the freeway. Next, go left/northeast onto Porter Ranch Road, a dirt road. Go left/north onto County Hwy. 504 then right/southeast onto County Hwy. 785. At a Y in the road, go left/northeast so that you stay on Hwy. 785 (Don't go straight/south onto Hwy. 9127T). When the road dips at about about 0.75 miles from the Hwy. 9127T junction, pull off to the side of the road and park.

Down a volcanic crater
The trail is the dirt road. You'll walk into the shallow crater that is rounded by two short hills. The older, crescent-shaped northern hill is shorter than the southern one.

A maar is a crater formed when rising magma heats the groundwater above it, resulting in explosive blasts of steam. Ejecta from several blasts over time created the two hills.

While volcanic rock and ash can be found on both hillsides, the pinyon and juniper growing there are far more noticeable.

The San Francisco Volcanic Field covers 1800 square miles of northern Arizona. Remnants of more than 600 volcanoes can be found in the field, all formed during the past 6 million years.

When the road ascends out of the crater at a narrow point between the two hills, head back the way you came. While the road continues east, you would just be walking across open desert.

Up a cinder cone
On the walk back, look to the northwest. The San Francisco stratovolcano – topping out at 12,633 feet, is in the far distance. The mountain’s volcanic cone was formed during multiple eruptions between 400,000 and 900,000 years ago. Before the mountain collapsed, the summit reached more than 16,000 feet above sea level. The top 3,500 feet of the mountain flowed eastward as a debris avalanche toward Sunset Crater. Today, the stratovolcano stands as Arizona’s highest point.

You can walk off the road and do a little bushwhacking. One great spot to climb to is the hill on the crater's south side. This hill actually is a cinder (or scoria) cone, essentially a steep conical hill of loose pyroclastic fragments that rose around the vent. Among the fragments are volcanic clinkers and volcanic ash.

If you head up the southern hill’s steep east side and then down its west side, you’ll have a great view of the crater and arrive right back at your vehicle. This route comes to about 1.6 miles or a tenth of a mile longer than sticking to the road that heads through the crater.

The entire hike is unshaded, so be sure to don sunscreen, sunglasses and sunhat. Bring plenty of water as well.

AERIAL MAP

Click for larger, printable version

Prairie wildflowers await atop river bluff

The blackberry lily blooms in mid- to late-summer on the Trout Valley Trail.

Trout Valley Trail map

Day hikers can discover blufftop wildflowers on southeastern Minnesota’s Trout Valley Trail.

The 7-mile lollipop trail sits in the Trout Valley Management Unit, one of several units making up the Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest. The forest protects 1,588 square miles of Minnesota’s Driftless Area.

To reach the trailhead, from Weaver, Minn., head south on Minn. Hwy. 61 for two miles. Turn right/west onto Wabasha County 29; upon crossing the county line, it naturally becomes Winona County 31. A parking lot is on the trail’s left/east side.

The trail’s gravel stem heads with a 300-foot climb up the bluff. Though steep, every step you take crosses eons of geological history, as the limestone and sandstone beneath your feet was set down more than 400 million years ago when this part of the world was alternately beneath and at the edge of a shallow tropical sea.

Blufftop wildflowers
At the second trail junction – specifically the one that is a large ATV turnaround – go right/south. You’re now on the looping Trout Valley Trail.

The terrain crosses a fairly flat, open area. This is a great stretch for wildflowers.

Blufftop wildflowers generally are the same as you’d find in prairies to the west. That’s because the flat tops of bluffs – like prairies – receive a lot of sun and have sandy soil.

During early spring, look for hoary puccoon, Indian paintbrush, prairie smoke, pussytoes, white shooting stars, and wood betony. By late summer, an entirely new set of wildflowers – including asters, evening primrose, fleabane, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, yarrow, yellow coneflowers, white campion, and wild bergamot – are in bloom.

Soon the grasslands gives way to a tree plantation on your left. The trail here is about as wide as a country road and heads through a tunnel of pine trees.

Blackberry lily
Next the trail passes a cultivated field for about a half mile before re-entering the woods. Though wide, the trail is rocky and steep as it descends between two bluffs into a valley.

You’ve reached the valley floor when the trail passes parking area for a snowmobile trail.

What comes down must go up, and the next 0.6 miles is another precipitous ascent. Watch for the blackberry lily along the trailside.

The blackberry lily’s brilliant orange flowers usually bloom in August. The plant grows up to two-and-a-half feet high and are easy to spot because of the spear-shaped petals that are mottled a dark crimson, giving them the nickname of the leopard lily. Its seed pods contain spherical seeds that look like blackberries.

Mississippi river views
At the bluff’s top, the trail makes a hairpin turn, skirting the edge of an open area. Red pines and a variety of shrubs populate this barrens.

Once the trail curves west, pause for a great vista of the Mississippi River below. You’re at about 1160 feet elevation, a full 46 stories above the river. The bluffs and hills on the other side of the river are in Wisconsin.

Bald eagles often can be seen riding the thermals over the bluffs and diving down to the river. They also search the goat prairies along the Mississippi River bluffs for prey.

Other wildlife that can be spotted on the trail include white-tailed deer – you’ll probably spot their tracks on the trail through the tree plantation – and butterflies that flit about the wildflowers in the blufftop prairie.

The trail continues to skirt the north side of the irregular-shaped blufftop, providing glimpses of the river through the tall pines and birch.

Valley vista
When the trail makes a sharp, almost right angle, look for railing that marks a fantastic vista of the bluffs and valleys that sit off the river.

Next the trail enters a woodlands. Upon passing a marshy area, the trail reaches the ATV turnaround. Turn right/west onto the stem trail and retrace your steps to the parking lot.

The state forest is named for Richard J. Dorer, who supervised wildlife development at the Minnesota Department of Conservation in the 1940s-1950s. He proposed a groundbreaking plan for managing woodlands and rehabilitate land deeply eroded by farming.

In 1960, Minnesota put the plan into effect by creating the state forest across seven counties. This included replanting bluff sides and runoff ponds. When Dorer died in 1974, the state forest was named in his honor.

Hike heads across Mississippi River bluffs

King's and Queen's bluffs rise some 60 stories above the Mississippi River.
Photo courtesy of MNDNR.

King's Bluff Trail map.

Day hikers can explore a forest that once stretched across half of America and enjoy fantastic views of the Mississippi River on the King's Bluff Trail.

The 4.94-miles round trip hike crosses a number of blufftop ecosystems at Minnesota’s 3000-acre Great River Bluffs State Park. A “natural state park,” Great River Bluffs deliberately has few modern amenities.

To reach the park, from Winona take U.S. Hwy. 14 south. Turn left/southwest onto County Road 3 then left/east onto the park road (aka Kipp Drive). Leave your vehicle at the gravel lot on the road’s left/west side about two miles into the park. The trailhead is at the lot’s northwest end; go left/northwest onto it. The trail is wide with a surface of either mowed grass or dirt.

Your hike begins in an open bluff prairie, full of native grasses and wildflowers. The tall dense grasslands provides the perfect home for the rare buff-colored Henslow’s sparrow. While you may not see one, you’re certain to hear its soft song that sounds like tsi-lick. While most sparrows build their nests in trees and eaves, the Henslow constructs a grass nest about 2-3 inches off the ground. Its numbers declined greatly from the 1960s through the 1980s thanks to the conversion of bluff prairies to farmland.

Oak-hickory forest
The trail soon enters a dense hardwood forest of pine, mixed oak and shagback hickory. The forest is a remnant of the oak and hickory forest that once stretched all the way from Minnesota to the Atlantic Ocean. As pioneers moved across the continent, though, the trees were cut for lumber and to open up land for farming.

About a quarter mile in, you’ll come to a junction for an interpretive nature trail; go left/west onto it. The side trail, lined with white and ash pine, heads to a vista of a small river valley that runs along the bluff’s side.

The trail loops back to the main route; when it does, go left/north. Several old, twisted, gnarled oaks, appearing like some fairy tale illustration come to life, dominate this portion of the walk.

At 0.7 miles, you’ll reach a trail junction; go left/north onto the interpretative spur trail that leads to a scenic overlook atop King’s Bluff.

King’s Bluff sits atop sediments deposited around 450 million years ago when this part of the world sat beneath a sea. As layers upon layer of sediment settled at the sea bottom, it gradually hardened into the limestone, dolomite, and sandstone that we see in the exposed bluff sides today.

Goat prairie
The interpretive trail soon enters a goat prairie. All across the river bluffs, as here, a number of south- to southwest-facing slopes sit at an angle of 50 degrees, allowing them to take in a greater amount of heat from the sun than the surrounding, more vertical rock. When winter nights cool the ground, though, the rock tends to crack and weather away in a constant cycle of freezing and thawing. This prevents trees from taking root, but grasses and wildflowers flourish.

At the end of the spur trail is a vista of the Mississippi River and its backwaters with Wisconsin on the far shoreline. Queen’s Bluff also is visible to the east. Atop it you’ll spy a rare grove of northern white cedar, a survivor from glacial times when frigid Glacial River Warren filled the river valley to the bluff tops, as meltwater flowed south to the Gulf of Mexico.

After taking in the sights, return on the spur trail to the main trail and go left/east onto it. The trail next passes through an oak forest.

At nearly 3 miles from the trailhead, another spur heads left/northwest onto Queen’s Bluff. This offers another great vista of the Mississippi River Valley. Watch the skies for the endangered peregrine falcon, which nests on the bluff. Peregrine falcons can dive at up to 200 miles per hour, making it the fastest animal alive.

The falcon is just one of many impressive creatures that inhabit the state park. Black squirrels, coyotes, eagles, opossums, spotted skunks, vultures, white-tailed deer and wild turkeys all have been spotted here. The endangered timber rattlesnake also makes its home on the bluff rocks, but sightings are rare.

Picnic at overlook
From the overlook, head back to the main trail and go left/east onto it. The trail quickly curves south.

At the next junction, head left/north. This parallels the park entrance road and ends at another great Mississippi River vista from Queen’s Bluff. Picnic tables are located near the overlook.

Once you’ve taken in the view, retrace your steps for nearly 0.3 miles back to the last junction. Rather than go the overlook, continue straight/southwest on the trail alongside the road back to your parking lot.

The hike is best done during dry weather and at least a couple of days after the last rainfall. The trail can come close to cliff edges and is slippery when wet.

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.