![]() ![]() You can’t cut corners here either because there are high cliffs. In the woods, you’ll have a pretty clear path north to the hollow. Your goal is to get into the forest before heading north. Unless you’re a total masochist this option sucks. You’ll be tempted to cut an angle north-east to the valley, but the seemingly open area is full of thick bramble, thorny raspberry whips and prickly ash trees. You’ll pass a lone silo on your left and enter an obvious oak tree planting where the trees are all in a line. Once you’ve accepted that your car is a bit too far in the road and can focus on the hike, just head east on the trail for a while. Let’s look at this Orchard Road snowshoe option a bit more. The payoff here is that you get the full “Pine Hollow” experience traveling from the top to the bottom of the hollow and following the stream along the way. This is a hike for people comfortable in snowshoes, water crossings (if not frozen) and steep snow-covered slopes. The second issue with the Orchard Road option is that it’s a much longer hike. There is also a bit of ridge and blind corner right there as well. The downside of this option is that where you would normally park in summer, is not plowed in the winter. You’re second option, or your best option in the Winter is on Orchard Road. (See our map above.) Which is very tempting. That said, if you park in the right spot, you can hike down to the ice fairly quickly. In the winter when the snow is deep, there is no shoulder, no good place to park and no place to turn around. You are advised by the DNR to park on the shoulder and “hike in”. There are no signs and trail heads to tell you if you’ve gone too far. It turns into a gravel road and there are a couple small turn arounds. The little road will climb north of the hollow. In the summer Pine Hollow road is a good option. – You can zoom out on the map below to get your bearing. You have two choices Pine Hollow Road or a little further down, Orchard Road. You don’t quite get to the park before you have to turn right. The easy part is that to get over to Pine Hollow from the Devil’s Lake region you head west from Highway 12 on County Road C toward Natural Bridge State Park. That said, access to the ice and the hollow itself is not well mapped or described. The neighboring property owner is accepting of the fact that no one knows where Pine Hollow begins and ends, but we do want to do our best to stay off their land and inform others where the borders are. ![]() The ice wall itself is located at the very bottom of the ravine and at the border of the SNA. The ravine provides an amazing mix of micro-climates supporting about 500 different species of plant-life, the most prominent being the thick and towering hemlock trees. ![]() Pine Hollow State Natural area received its SNA designation in 1966 for its amazing deep and ravine that drops some 300′ with cliff walls rising up to 80 feet over the floor. Grab your snowshoes and we’ll tell you how it’s done. Certainly worth the extra effort you have to put in to get to it. In March of 2019, the ice wall at Pine Hollow State Natural Area near Leland, Wisconsin was something to behold. ![]()
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