Nature Journal

26 September


It had been some time since we've explored up on the Grandad Bluff side of the Bliss Road ridge.  Most often, we hitch some bikes onto the car and head for the HPT's over on the Rim of the City side, itself a regional gem that has recently been improved for access.  The south side of the ridge, I had forgotten, is a unique geography of sheer sandstone cliff faces.  Much of this area had been quarried in the early days of La Crosse history, sometimes rock chutes coming right off the ridges down below.  Here and there along the vast web of trails just below Grandad's itself, many remnants of mining still exist.  Flat stone stretches of ground, or an old cement stairway, pegged and walled for ease of walking in among the great crumbling ravines and small canyons which make up this portion of the bluff.  Rising up the very cliff that held the Grandad lookout above we noticed a series of metal loops that had been installed there most likely many years ago for rock climbing.  With a good and trusted belayer below, these sandstone cliffs, although sometimes fragile, can make for an easy introduction to the fun art of rock climbing.  At one point, out past the concrete mining steps, moving in the direction of the city of La Crosse itself, was a series of rock outcroppings that were unlike any other in the area. Very often at the top of bluffs there are a series of rock shelves, each one offering a tilted boulder of some sort, where people can easily climb, sit and take a look at the lush green canopy of the city.  Here at the face of Grandads, this sort of shelving of outcroppings and boulders extends for hundreds of yards, something you might see only in the movies of the great west.  Because these rocks are part and parcel of a bluff, though, not a mountain, the proportions are also scaled back seemingly are made to travel, rarely forcing the hiker to take more of a risk than a brief hop or casual lunge.  Down at the bottom, at the final shelf over looking the railroad and out beyond the blue dashes of the Mississippi River, the sand has accumulated and created a soft carpeting to stand on in and around the chairs and couches of boulders.