Wisconsin Dells Beyond the Waterparks: A Local's Guide

Wisconsin Dells calls itself the Waterpark Capital of the World, and the billboards on Interstate 90/94 make sure you know it. What they skip is the reason the town exists: a five-mile gorge where the Wisconsin River squeezes between 100-foot walls of Cambrian sandstone, laid down roughly 500 million years ago and carved out in days when a glacial lake burst through about 15,000 years ago. Victorian tourists came by train to see those cliffs long before anyone built a wave pool, and the cliffs are still the best thing here. This guide covers the classic river tours, the free trails and swimming spots locals use, the supper clubs worth the drive, and the Baraboo side trips that turn a waterpark weekend into a real trip. The Dells is an hour northwest of Madison, two hours from Milwaukee, three from Chicago, and three and a half from Minneapolis, and Amtrak's Empire Builder stops downtown daily in each direction.

Start on the water with Dells Boat Tours. The Kilbourn Dam, built in 1909, splits the river into the Upper and Lower Dells, and the two-hour Upper Dells tour is the one to book. Boats leave from the foot of Broadway, pass formations like Chimney Rock and Blackhawk's Profile, and make two shore landings. Witches Gulch is a slot canyon of dripping ferns and boardwalks that stays cool in August. Stand Rock is the sandstone pillar where photographer H.H. Bennett shot his famous 1886 stop-action image of his son leaping the gap; today a trained dog makes the jump for every boat. The one-hour Lower Dells tour has no landings and closes in low water, so if you only do one, go upriver. Tours run April through October with no reservations, and the first departure has the calmest water and fewest people. For the same scenery with more noise, the Original Wisconsin Ducks have driven World War II amphibious trucks through the woods and into the river since 1946. Kids pick the Ducks; adults who care about the rock pick the boat.

The cliffs are free if you know where to walk. Most of the gorge is protected as the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area, and two access points let you see it without a ticket. On the east bank, the Chapel Gorge Trail is a 1.5-mile loop through pine and oak that drops to a wide sand beach exactly where the river leaves the Narrows. On a hot weekday this is where Dells families actually swim, with tour boats sliding past the cliffs across the water. The final descent is steep, there is no lifeguard, and the lot on River Road fills by late morning on summer weekends. On the west bank, the Cambrian Overlook is a bluff-top deck looking straight down the Upper Dells at the Palisades, a five-minute walk from a lot off County Highway N. The gate opens Memorial Day through Labor Day, but you can walk in year-round, and early October, when the maples along the rim turn, is the best time. Paddlers can carry a kayak down the paved lane beside the lot and float the same water the tour boats use.

Two quieter parks sit minutes from the strip. Mirror Lake State Park is ten minutes south of the waterparks and feels like a different state. The lake is a no-wake sandstone canyon with 50-foot walls, so calm on still mornings that it earns its name, and renting a kayak at the beach to paddle the narrows under the highway bridges is the best two hours of quiet in the area. On the park's west edge is the Seth Peterson Cottage, an 880-square-foot lakeside house Frank Lloyd Wright designed in 1958, one of his last commissions. Volunteers rescued it from rot in the 1990s, and it is now the only Wright building in Wisconsin you can rent overnight. Public tours run the second Sunday of every month from 1 to 4 p.m. for a few dollars, no reservation needed. Closer still, Rocky Arbor State Park is a mile and a half from downtown along a channel the Wisconsin River abandoned when the glaciers rerouted it. A one-mile loop climbs a sandstone bluff above the old riverbed, the campground is small and wooded, and on a Saturday when the resorts are elbow to elbow it can be nearly empty.

Yes, do a waterpark, but choose on purpose. Noah's Ark is the biggest outdoor waterpark in the country and runs Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day; go on a weekday, arrive at opening, and ride the big slides before the lines form. The indoor parks keep the town alive in January. Kalahari and the Wilderness Resort are the two giants, and both limit their waterparks to hotel guests, so a one-night stay is the ticket. Great Wolf Lodge is the calmer choice with small children, and Mt. Olympus bundles wooden coasters and go-karts with its water rides. For something older and stranger, Lost Canyon Tours has run horse-drawn wagons through a mile of cliff-walled gorge on the south shore of Lake Delton since 1956, and the guides still talk the horses through passages barely wider than the wagon. Downtown, the H.H. Bennett Studio on Broadway is the original 1875 photography studio, now a state historic site, and it explains in half an hour why every cliff on the river has a name.

Eat at a supper club at least once. Wisconsin supper clubs are a ritual: an Old Fashioned at the bar, a relish tray, a slow dinner, and no rush to turn the table. Ishnala is the one to plan around. It has stood on the shore of Mirror Lake inside the state park since 1953, Norway pines grow through the dining room roof, and every table looks at the water. It takes no reservations, so on a weekend arrive when the bar opens in mid-afternoon, put your name in, and take your drink down to the lakeside deck. The season ends in late October. On the Parkway, The Del-Bar has served steaks since 1943 in a Prairie-style dining room designed by a Wright apprentice, and House of Embers does hickory-smoked ribs and lets you sear your own steak on a hot lava rock. For lunch, Monk's Bar & Grill on Broadway is the downtown burger institution, and MooseJaw Pizza brews its own beer in a log lodge on the south end of the Parkway and handles big family tables without blinking.

Save a day for Baraboo and Devil's Lake. Twenty minutes south, Devil's Lake State Park is Wisconsin's most-visited state park for good reason: a spring-fed lake ringed by 500-foot quartzite bluffs, with the East Bluff and Balanced Rock trails climbing stone staircases to views unlike anything else in the Midwest. Its lots fill by 10 a.m. on summer weekends, so go early or go in September. Ten minutes east, Parfrey's Glen was Wisconsin's first State Natural Area, a mossy quarter-mile gorge most Devil's Lake visitors never find. Baraboo was the Ringling brothers' hometown: Circus World occupies their original winter quarters on the river with summer big-top shows, and the 1915 Al. Ringling Theatre on the courthouse square still runs films and concerts. The International Crane Foundation north of town is the only place on Earth to see all fifteen crane species, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation tours the shack where Leopold wrote A Sand County Almanac. Finish at Tumbled Rock Brewery at the foot of the Devil's Lake bluffs or Driftless Glen, a distillery and restaurant on the Baraboo River downtown.

When to go and how long to stay. Three nights is right: one day on the river and the trails, one at a waterpark, one for Baraboo and Devil's Lake. Late June through mid-August is peak, with the highest prices and busiest Parkway, so book lodging months ahead. The first three weeks of September are the sweet spot: warm water, boat tours still running, and school-year quiet on weekdays. Early to mid-October brings fall color to the gorge and Mirror Lake while Ishnala is still open, and the frozen Upper Dells from the Cambrian Overlook on a clear January day is a sight almost nobody bothers to see. Stay on the Lake Delton side of the Parkway to walk to restaurants, or downtown near Broadway to walk to the boat dock. And do not leave without standing at the bottom of Chapel Gorge with your feet in the water, looking up at the cliffs that started all of this.