Blue Mound is one of the best parks in southern Wisconsin for silent winter sports

When I lived in often-rainy Olympia, Washington, along the Puget Sound, I’d sometimes drive from my sea-level home up to Mount Rainier National Park in winter to go cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and climbing. One March, I attempted — and failed — to summit the park’s lofty 14,411-foot volcanic peak, but returned five months later to complete my quest. 

Though it’s an exaggeration, Blue Mound State Park west of Mount Horeb reminds me a little of Mount Rainer because it too rises above the surrounding landscape. The dolomite cap at the park’s center — which tops out at 1,716 feet — is the highest point in southern Wisconsin, often has a lot more snow than surrounding terrain and is a great place for winter outings.

The elevation gain from near the park entrance in Blue Mounds (population 855) to the crest of the park — where you can climb two 40-foot-tall observation towers — is only around 450 feet. But that’s enough to tempt passing clouds to drop snow on the 1,153-acre preserve, which Kevin Swenson, Blue Mound State Park manager, calls a winter Mecca for cross-country skiers, snowshoers and fat-tire mountain bikers. 

It’s not unusual, he noted, for the park to draw several hundred outdoor enthusiasts on weekends when there is snow on the ground. During my recent Thursday morning visit, there were only a dozen or so skiers, snowshoers and cyclists on the trails. We pretty much had the entire park to ourselves. 

“I commute from Madison,” Swenson said. “It can be sunny with no snow there. But when I get here, it’s sometimes snowing. We seem to get a lot of continuous dustings, too, plus the north-facing aspect of the trails helps keep the snow on the ground because the sun is low in the southern sky during the winter. We also get hoar frost at higher elevations, so there is often a pretty white cover on top.”

Swenson said the park has nine miles of Nordic ski trails. Most are groomed for classic skiing, though there is some track set aside for skate skiers in the campground and on the summit of the park. 

Another 13 miles of single-track trails are open to mountain bikers and snowshoers. Hikers can tromp around wherever they want, as long as they stay off the cross-country track. 

The mountain bike trails are maintained by Walter Hougas, who heads the Friends of Blue Mound State Park trail steward group. 

In the winter, Hougas said, the preserve is often a “white bump, surrounded by brown forests and farmlands” that draws him back time and time again from his home in McFarland. 

Swenson said park staff groom the Nordic trails with a pair of snowmobiles that pull machines that pulverize the snow and then set track. 

Unlike northern Wisconsin parks that get lighter snow because of cooler temperatures, Swenson said he and his crew focus on tilling up compacted snow to keep it aerated and fluffy for skiers. 

“If it just gets compacted down with our warmer temps, it can turn to ice,” he said. 

“But when there is new snow here, this place is wonderful. Then it’s really quiet and peaceful. It makes you stop to look around because the view over the fields and forests is majestic.”

Hougas, a rertired chemist, is also a board member of the Capital Off Road Pathfinders bike club. He’s a cross-country skier, too, and describes most of the trails at Blue Mound as hilly, well-suited for intermediate to advanced skiers.  He recommends the Odana Hills Golf Course in Madison as a better place for novice Nordic skiers to improve their skills before heading to Blue Mound. 

While the park staff sets a wide cross-country track behind snowmobiles, Hougas uses a self-propelled Snowdog machine to compact the narrow mountain bike and snowshoe trails. He rides behind the machine, standing on a sled. 

He fired up the machine, which reminded me of a non-snowblowing snowblower, to show me how it worked. Then he lent me his full-suspension Trek fat-tire bike so I could go for a spin. The tires were inflated to a squishy 10 pounds-per-square-inch so they’d flatten out and better remain on top of the snow. Within 30 seconds, I was deep in the forest.

“In the summer, the mountain bike trails are more challenging because of all the rocks and roots,” he told me during a chat in the park’s 2,400-square-foot wooden warming house. The structure cost $500,000, was funded almost entirely by the Friends group and sports a huge and colorful quilt on one wall.

“But in the winter, when the snow covers and smothers everything, you get much more of a flat trail. But it’s still hilly, no getting around that.  

“Regardless of whether you’re biking, hiking, skiing or snowshoeing, Blue Mound is a wonderfully beautiful place to experience nature. You can almost have a wilderness experience here in the winter. I don’t think a lot of people grasp that.”

That wilderness experience might include snowmobiles in the future. 

Snowmobiles can travel on the Military Ridge State Trail south of the park and the shoulder of Mounds Park Road through it, but the Friends group and other silent-sports advocates have opposed expanding that to recreational snowmobile use on trails. Hougas said his organization resisted efforts five years ago to “shoehorn” a snowmobile route into the park cross-country trail system. That effort was blocked in 2016, when a Dane County judge stopped the Department of Natural Resources from moving forward and sided with former park superintendent Karl Heil and Blue Mounds resident Kenneth Wade, who had sued the agency. 

But the DNR is now drafting a new master plan for the park that could permit snowmobiling, which has not been allowed on trails for more than two decades. A recently closed comment period garnered more than 1,000 opinions on both sides of the controversial issue. Sarah Hoye, a spokeswoman for the DNR, said a draft version of the master plan should be finished this spring for review. 

More information: Camping, for the truly hardy, is allowed in winter, but the sites are walk- or ski-in only. Firewood and water are available. 

Skiers and cyclists age 16 and older need a state trail pass ($25/year, $5/day). Pets are not permitted on the groomed cross-country ski trails or designated nature trails.

Blue Mound State Park, 435 Mounds Park Road, Blue Mounds, is about 110 miles west of Milwaukee.

For more, see dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/bluemound or call (608) 437-5711.