Driftless Area: Scenes of Spring

Halfway Creek Bridge Midway, Holmen

About a mile north from Midway toward Holmen along the Great River State Trail, a favorite stopping place when biking – on an old RR bridge over a perennially roaring little brown creek. To either side, cornfields yet to sprout, waiting for the May frost to give way to sunshine.  The old trail here is one of those symbolic scenes from the Coulee Region drift less area, as so many are ... the immediate landscape is marshland, rising just above the level of the river, brown cattails, fallen oak limbs, and snickering of the red-winged blackbird, all of which is fenced-in, geographically speaking, by the familiar bluff plateaus.  One could easily picture the days of years past, no bikes here, but a long Milwaukee rail load heading for the La Crosse depot.

Myrick / La Crosse River Trail

The sun shone in late April, but as we found out as we sat down at a park bench across the road from the Myrick Park play structure, the wind still carried a bite, we took our Subway sandwiches back in the car and watched nature from afar, with the heat on.  Dad tried to sell a trail walk, but without sweatshirts these two hikers didn't make it much past the forty yard sign until it was time to dash back to the white car in the background.  

La Crosse Amtrak Depot, St. Andrews Street

Speaking of retreating to the car, this photo journalist was tempted to research a little more thoroughly into the north side La Crosse RR Depot, but the scene lost some of its glamour in the cold late April rain.  The depot is buried in the depths of a north side neighborhood that is almost unknown to locals or visitors alike.  Close to 30,000 passengers get on a train here annually, and once home to a BBQ shack, this is a well-worthwhile blast from the past. Along with the fur-trade, lumber, and steamboat culture, railroads were one of our top five generators of population and industry.  

From Greens Coulee MVC Conservation Easement Trail

With little fanfare, a new trail was opened in the last year up in the back end of Greens Coulee Road.  Facing the Greens Coulee Park trail system, including Garland Meadow, the Mississippi Valley Conservancy was able to secure bluff property that climbs up to the ridge, allowing the hiker to see all of the contours of the Greens Coulee drift less area, gradually descending down to Lake Onalaska.  Few plants or trees in bud just yet, the trail is dominated by the weathered glow of birch limbs and crisp maple and oak leaves.  A moth settles its wings long enough for the iPhone snapshot, then leaps back up into the free transportation of the wind.