Devils lake adventure

I always had an awareness of Devil's Lake Wisconsin as a classic climbing area but I had no idea what it was really all about.  When I went to see my parents who had recently moved to Osh-Kosh Wisconsin I had to go check it out, my sisters went with me.

 The trail to the East Rampart, which is the most popular zone at Devil's Lake, was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) in the 1930s along with many of the other trails in the park.

The lake is in the middle of a long glacial trough.  Go to this link for the full geological scoop. http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/devilslake/geology.html

More relaxing views of the terminal moraine.

The stone here is quartzite. It is super smooth and compact, it also inspired a lot of art shots.

The routes here are tall, up to 200 ft.

At first I thought that Devils Lake was somehow a sport climbing area with a few trad routes. I could not have been more wrong.  In actuality Devils Lake is a trad area where the only face climbing is done on top rope. I don't think that I personally have ever been to a place that is more ruthlessly trad. There are 1600 routes in the place and three, count 'em, three bolts, and I saw two of them, I wonder where the other one is? 

With over 1600 routes there are 1600 natural anchors between the bullet proof cracks and trees at the top of the bluffs.  Be prepared to overcome this obstacle, I was not. Plenty of long slings and confidence in building trad anchors is, for all points and purposes, a requirement to climb here; even though you can easily walk to the top of all the routes.

Devil's Lake is the southern Utah of central Wisconsin

The rock here it's really pretty! It is certainly a unique formation, it's understandable that they don't want to cover it with bolts.

The talus fields at Devil's Lake are huge, red, and beautiful.  For folks heading west back back in the pioneer days the talus fields at the base of these cliffs where the first talus fields that they had ever seen.  Somehow a good photo of the aforementioned talus escaped this blog.

Wisconsin's best finger crack.