Perrot State Park

Beautiful day for a hike at Perrot State Park.

 

Fall at Perrot State Park

It was a beautiful fall day so we decided to drive down to Trempealeau, Wisconsin to visit Perrot State Park. When we arrived we discovered that the river valley was covered in fog.

 

Mother’s Day at Perrot State Park

It has become somewhat of a tradition that we drive down to Perrott State Park and Hike and have dinner at a local Restaurant. It gives us a chance to enjoy the spring flowers. They were really blooming this year. These are only a few of the flowers we found along the trail. Since our last visit the trail to Brady’s Bluff, has been moved and it now goes through vast fields of Shooting Stars.

More photos from Perrot can be found on my website.

Shooting Star

Rue Anemone

Large-flowered Bellwort

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Columbine

 

 

An Early Summer Visit to Perrot State Park

Generally we visit Perrot State Park in the Spring and in the fall but we had some time and the need to finish a book we were listening to on the car CD so we drove down to  Perrot State Park for a hike to the overlook of the Mississippi River.

 

 

 

 

There were a lot of dragonflies around. I had my macro lens on the camera so it was a challenge to get close enough to them to get a photograph.

Common Whitetail

Common Pondhawk

There were also some butterflies around but I didn’t have much luck photographing them.

Aphrodite Fritillary

There were also a variety of wildflowers blooming.

Goat’s Beard

Butterfly Weed

Perrot State Park Photo

Several years ago staff at the DNR asked if they could use a photo I had taken at Perrot State Park for a Display in their Nature Center. Although we visit Perrot fairly frequently I never stopped in the Nature Center to see if they used the photo. Last week we drove down to Perrot and I stopped in to check. Here is a copy of the original photo and the photo in the display.

A fall Hike at Perrot State Park

My wife and I headed down to Perrot State Park on a beautiful warm weekday. In fact we found it to be a little too warm for hiking. We first hiked up the Perrot Ridge trail which offered nice views of the interior of the park.

After hiking for over an hour we came down from Perrot Ridge and took the trail up Brady’s Bluff. We were on the south side of the bluff on a very warm fall day. Once we came out of the woods we encountered the largest number of Asian Lady Beetles I’ve ever seen. We were both covered in Asian Lady Beetles and they started to bite.

 

Normally we stop at the top of Brady’s Bluff for a snack and to enjoy the view but the beetles were so bad that we raced to the top and down the other side.

As with most places we visited this fall the leaf colors were very muted and were mostly earth tones and yellows. There were very few reds this year.

Perrot State Park

After stopping at Riecks Lake we continued on to Perrot State Park. When we arrived in Trempealeau we decided to stop at the Historic Trempealeau Hotel for Lunch. It was an interesting place to visit. On this particular day the bar was filled with Minnesota Gopher fans watching a Gopher football game.

After Lunch we drove into the Park and parked just inside the entrance at the foot of the Brady’s Bluff trail. By the time we reached the trailhead it was a beautiful fall day.

We hiked up the east trail to the top of Brady’s Bluff then took the north trail to the interior of the park where we spent most of the afternoon hiking. During the hike we kept encountering a couple of men who appeared to be bushwhacking around the park. The seemed to be lost most of the time. We never did figure out what they were doing.

After hiking most of the interior trails we headed back to Brady’s Bluff. This time we took the east trail down to the boat landing before walking back to the car along the river.

More photos from our trip to Perot State Park can be found on my website.

Perrot State Park

My wife and I drove down to Perrot State Park earlier in the week to check out the wildflowers. We seemed to hit it just right. There were twenty+ different flowers blooming along the trails. Unfortunately the wind was really blowing making it difficult to photograph. I did manage a few photos.

Shooting Star

Large-flowered Bellwort

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

False Rue Anemone

Spring at Perrot State Park

This past weekend we drove down along the Mississippi River to Perrot State Park. I was really surprised at the number of wildflowers that were blooming in the park. Most of them were at the lower elevations and on the south facing slopes. In all we saw over a dozen wildflowers in bloom. Things are really early this year, at least 3-4 weeks ahead of a normal year.

This is a shot of the Dutchman’s Breeches that were out in large numbers. In fact many of them were already in decline which is unusual for this time of year.

 

False Rue Anemone was out along the trail but not in large numbers.

 

 

 

In addition to the large number of flowers the trees were just starting to get their leaves. Emerging leaves are one of my favorite subjects early in the spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More spring photos can be found on my website.