Why this ride
A high-value Midwestern exception, with bluff roads and repeated river views. The road: WI-35 and IA-26. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Driftless Mississippi Bluffs
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 275 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 16
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. La Crosse
A rider could spend a week in La Crosse and never be bored by the view. The city lies on a flat strip of land between the Mississippi River and a line of steep, wooded bluffs, at the point where the Black and La Crosse rivers join the big river, and it feels like the middle of the Midwest folded into a valley. Grandad Bluff, a rocky headland rising almost two hundred metres above the town, gives the best look at the whole scene, with the river, the islands and Minnesota on the far side.
2. Prairie du Chien
Prairie du Chien lies at the spot where the Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi, and the French noticed. In June 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, paddling down from the Wisconsin, reached the great river somewhere near here, and the settlement that grew up became a fur-trading center, one of the oldest European outposts in the upper Midwest. The name means prairie of the dog, and it is usually said to come from a Fox chief whose name meant dog.
3. Decorah
4. Back to La Crosse
Return visit. Read the place description above.