Hiking the McGilvray Road “7 Bridges” trail

I was recently able to arrange a whole day to devote to “things I feel like doing” as distinct from “things I need to do”, and I chose to visit Van Loon State Wildlife Area, a bit north and west of Holmen (a northern suburb of La Crosse). Why this, particularly? I was looking for a book by the historian Hendrik Willem Van Loon, and search engine results included the SWA and the 7 bridges trail within it. Follow the links to get the whole fascinating story; I don’t want to get into TL:DR territory. Of course I also found a book about the history of the bridges and how the bridges were preserved by local nature lovers, who continue to maintain the trail today.

The book. The Winding Rivers Library System was able to get me a copy!

The information center, in the parking lot. There is also a picnic table in a little nook, up a few steps, to the left.

The trail is on both the national and Wisconsin state Register of Historic Places!

A simple, but eminently practical, trailhead, down a few steps.

I made a late start (for me) on a clear, cool morning that made the drive a pleasure, and it was still cool when I arrived at the park. I knew from my reading that the whole area was low ground with streams and marshy areas so I sprayed my hat and t-shirt with bug repellent before I grabbed my lightest hiking pack and set out down the trail.

I elected for the whole 3.6 mile round trip

Smooth sailing! The trail is wide and quite flat. The two strips free of vegetation show the fairly frequent passage of maintenance vehicles.

A fairly typical example of the bridges on the trail

There’s a trailside bench in the shade at Bridge 4, I sat down for a drink there

The trail seems to be maintained regularly, there was still fresh sawdust on the ground here.

More recent trail maintenance! There were several piles of gravel by the side of the trail, ready for use as might be required.

Here’s a spot they hadn’t gotten to yet, got my feet good and wet wading through it … closer to nature, right?

As I walked deeper and deeper, the bugs kept getting more numerous; by Bridge 5 they were getting a little bit annoying and their numbers kept increasing beyond there. Evaporation of my repellent spray wasn’t helping either.