Inn at Lonesome Hollow

It was 7 am, December 29, 2009. The temperature was minus four degrees (Fahrenheit, just in case someone outside the US is reading this). Early glimmers of daylight were just appearing to the east as we left our bed and breakfast, the Inn at Lonesome Hollow, near Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin. We quickly made our way to Hwy 131, then headed north. As the sky lightened a bit more we weaved our way past a wonderous white landscape, progressing north through the quiet villages of Soldiers Grove, Readstown, Viola, and LaFarge. About four miles north of La Farge we turned left onto Cty Hwy P. Just a mile after turning onto Cty P we pulled off the road into a small parking area at one of the many trailheads in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

Slight glint of the morning dawn on the frozen river

The Kickapoo Valley Reserve (KVR) is a jewel. It is more than 8000 acres of roughly sculpted hills, bluffs, and valley that are owned by the people of Wisconsin. It is located near the center of the famed Driftless Area, a large island or peninsula of land that was spared by the Wisconsin Glacier of ten thousand years ago. The Kickapoo River has therefore been slowly wearing away the limestone bedrock of the valley for more than one hundred thousand years. In places this erosion is gentle in appearance, with graceful valleys that gradually meld into the hills. In other places this erosion is dramatic and limestone bluffs rise almost one hundred feet vertically out of the river bed. The Kickapoo Valley is twenty-five times older than the pyramids of Egypt. It is about 500 times older than the United State of America. It is evidence of the persistence, the patience, and the power of nature.

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