Beaver Dam Lake and the Wild Goose Trail

Tour of eastern and southern Wisconsin Day 9

Editors Note: Somehow, this article was never posted. So it may appear out of sequence with the others from Wisconsin 2023.

We rolled out of Milwaukee around 8:00 AM and set our sites towards Beaver Dam, WI. But our first stop was in the town of Germantown for our first coffee stop, Latitude Coffee. Good medium roast and tasty bagel sandwiches.

It can be a challenge to know where to set in when first visiting a lake or river. We tried two separate parks around Beaver Dam Lake until we found Tahoe Park. It had plenty of boat parking and well maintained ramp. We set in and headed north then west to paddle around a series of small islands. The wind was a little bit challenging and the water around the islands was pretty shallow. As it turns out the lake isn’t much more than 6-7′ deep. We paddled over 5 miles and didn’t see one beaver dam.

We had a quick lunch and then headed northeast out of town for a bike ride on the Wild Goose State Trail

The trail is crushed limestone which for the most part is pretty easy to pedal. As with quite a few trails, it’s an old train line. These trails make the best riding in the summer because of the canopy of growth. The trail is almost 35 miles long, we did 14 miles.

We started out from a parking area along Highway 49 and headed south. North would have taken us towards Fon du Lac. It was a very nice ride with very few rough spots.

Although we never reach this point on the trail, I got a chuckle out of this warning on the Trail web site: “The trail borders the Juneau Rod & Gun Club about 1/4 mile north of the Hwy 60 trailhead. Trail users could experience loud gun fire at times when passing this location.” You gotta love Wisconsin!

The most excitement on the ride for us was on our return trip. I was out ahead of Mary about 100′ when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Then a huge shape-a bird– flapped up right in front of me, actually more beside me and then right over me. I felt the wind and maybe the actual wing as it cleared my head and flew off into the woods. Turns out it was a wild turkey. Thankfully, I was wearing my helmet! The rest of the ride was uneventful with no additional wildlife attacks and we headed back to Milwaukee.