Sugar Mountain

Now you say you're leavin' home
'Cause you want to be alone.
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're findin' out it's real?

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon
You're leaving there too soon.

- N. Young


I wrote, in the previous blog-entry, that I didn't go directly home from Wisconsin Dells. I made a little side-trip stop on the way back. About 20 miles west of Wisconsin Dells, on I-90/94, is the exit for the town of Camp Douglas. Right off the exit is Volk Field, a big airstation of Wisconsin's Air National Guard. If you continue along the road, less than 1/4 mile later is a rest stop that has a standing sandstone formation. I had stopped there once before, about a year ago. This time, I had my camera.

If you're westbound on the interstate, you can't miss this outcropping. My photos don't show the whole thing in all it's splendor, but anybody can see it from their car. As I implied above, it's easy to get to, and the rest area where it is has a trail that goes all the way around it.

Only a few miles west of here, along U.S. 12, is Wisconsin's Mill Bluff State Park. I also went there on last year's trip. According to the information I received there, these sandstone formations were once islands in what was once known as Glacial Lake Wisconsin. This lake covered a very large area of Wisconsin during the last ice age. Some time in the future, I'll get back to Mill Bluff and blog that park for all of you.

Below are some of the photos that I took. Some are captioned, but most of the images don't need words. Have a look, and I hope that you enjoy them! Let me know what you think, 'cuz I get a little lonely sometimes. :) :) :)

This is the view at the bottom of the formation - the character of the stone looks different in many respects.

This is a good view of some of the vertical faults in the formation.

A not-so-good view of the nonhorizontal layering of the sandstone near the base. Regarding my previous blog photos of the sandstone formations in the driftless area, I seem to be seeing a kind of pattern here.

A 3-photo composite image of the edge of the formation. (Well, an attempt at it, anyway.)

I have read that this formation is supposed to show Cambrian-era worm burrows; is that what these are? Or are these patterns from weathering? These were only on one part of the "back" of the formation.

This is a good view of a much larger formation just a little ways away, actually in the Volk Field ANG area (it's totally fenced in). The photo was taken from the parking lot of the rest area.