Grandad Bluff gives La Crosse its postcard view: a limestone headland rising about 150 metres over the city, from which the whole valley lies open, the Mississippi sliding past in several braided channels, the wooded bluffs of Minnesota on the far side, and the Wisconsin river towns lining the shore. On a clear autumn day the colour is extraordinary, the oaks and maples turning red and gold along miles of ridgeline. A road climbs to the top, and the view is free.
The city of about fifty thousand sits in the Driftless Area, an unusual pocket of the Upper Midwest that the glaciers missed, so the land is carved into steep ridges and deep valleys, called coulees, instead of the flat plain that surrounds it. Rivers here run clear and cold, and the country is thick with dairy farms, apple orchards and small towns. The Mississippi itself is wide and slow, with locks, backwaters and islands full of herons, eagles and pelicans in the migration season. Barges push long tows of grain and coal past the city.
La Crosse is best known for beer, historically, and for a lively university and a riverside park with a statue of Hiawatha. The name comes from the game the French voyageurs saw Native Americans playing on the prairie, which they called la crosse. The city's old breweries made it a hub of German-American culture, and bratwurst and cheese curds are still on every menu. A walk along the levee, with the barges passing and the railway bridge overhead, is a pleasant stroll after a long day.
For the Great River Road, which follows the Mississippi from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf, La Crosse marks a turning point, with the road south running through some of the loveliest scenery on the route. State Highway 35 hugs the Wisconsin shore, with long runs beside the river, wooded bluffs and little towns, and the bends are gentle and the traffic light. Surface is good and speeds are modest, so it suits an easy, scenic pace. Watch for deer at dawn and dusk, and for sudden fog off the river in cool mornings.
Fuel, food and rooms are plentiful, and the city has everything a rider might need. In spring, high water can close low-lying sections of road, and in winter ice makes the bluffs treacherous, so the season for riding is late spring through October.