Today I did a long stretch of driving, then decided to do something I had never had time to do before: take the Wisconsin Dells boat tour!
It’s funny, I’ve been to this area a million times—I’ve gone to Baraboo to Circus World, I’ve been to Dr. Evermore’s, I’ve been to the Don Q Inn in Dodgeville, I’ve been to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, and of course the acid trip experience that is the House on the Rock. I’ve been to go-kart tracks and funnel cake stands in the Wisconsin Dells tourist area—but strangely, never had the opportunity to see the thing that made the area famous in the first place.
The Ice Age and subsequent melting glaciers began to erode the sandstone rock bed on the Wisconsin River thousands of years ago, carving and eroding the sandstone into really interesting formations, mostly along a five-mile stretch, which is where they give the Upper Dells boat tours.
What’s really amazing is that they’ve been giving these same tourist boat tours since 1856! Amazing! The Dells have been a huge tourist draw for 170 years, and remain so to this day.
I have to say, the tour is pretty magical! You get on a boat with about sixty other people, and start heading up the river. You see some pretty amazing rock formations on both sides of the river, then you go through a narrow part of the river that starts to get very cool and dark. Eventually, they take you to the first dock of the tour, where you get off the boat and walk around in an area called the “Witches Gulch.” It’s an elevated walking path through an incredible series of rock formations. It gets really dark and closed in, and of course, there are little areas that they have funny little witch and Halloween-related names for. At the end of the trail, there’s a 1950s-era snack bar and restroom facility.
Back on the boat, they go across a wide spot in the river, and dock the boat again for another quick walk, this time to see Standing Rock, the most famous of all the Dells’ rock formations.
A photographer named H. H. Bennett first made the area nationally famous with a series of photographs he took using early stop-motion photography techniques. His most famous photo was of his son jumping between the rock towers at Standing Rock. This photo was published in a number of magazines, which began the explosion of tourist activity in the area.
Today, the tour has a trained dog jump at Standing Rock, doing the same back-and-forth that Bennett’s son did back in the late 1800s. Pretty great!
The trip back was pretty magical too. I was on the last boat tour of the day, so the sun was going down, the weather was cooling off nicely (sadly, there’s a big heat wave on the way, starting tomorrow), and it was just kind of—I know I’m overusing the word, but…magical!
I’m so glad I finally had time to do the Wisconsin Dells boat tour. If you haven’t been, I can’t recommend it enough. But fair warning: the town of Wisconsin Dells and the surrounding area is full of tourist traps, amusement parks, waterslides, and a million different places selling the worst “fair food” imaginable. I kind of dig that vintage commercialized strip of madness, myself, but it is odd to have it butted up against a beautiful nature area like the Dells.
See many more photos and videos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
