Hiking the Ice Age Trail - Gibraltar Rock Segment

Among the most dramatic overlooks in the Midwest, Gibraltar Rock towers nearly 500 feet above Lake Wisconsin. Views of the sun setting into the distant Baraboo Hills must be earned with a strenuous climb that caps a 4.8-mile course with switchback climbs, dips into fern floored ravines, and rolling trail that coasts though sun-drenched prairies, shaded oak savanna, and darkened pine forests. This is the Gibraltar Rock Segment of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail - one of the most essential hikes in the State of Wisconsin.

Day hikers and seasoned thru-hikers will find all they need on this trail. A trailhead pinned at the historic Merrimac ferry landing makes the perfect launchpad for a full-day out-and-back. Here hikers have access to a paved parking lot, flush restrooms, running water, and a seasonal concession stand featuring locally made ice cream. Just up the trail from the ferry landing backpackers in need of rest will find a shaded dispersed camping area tucked behind tall prairie grasses where dreamy sunset views can be enjoyed from a swaying hammock.

The IAT Gibraltar Segment's unique mix of terrain and vibrant ecosystems are filled with four seasons of wonder. Prairies, gullies, stands of northern pine and gnarly cedars embrace the trail with a tapestry of wonders keeping naturalists and bird watchers busy with new discoveries on every step.

Most just come for the views. The soaring experience of gazing over Wisconsin's unique Driftless region from the dizzying heights of the Gibraltar overlooks is breathtaking. Find a perch on one of many bald rock promontories where you can ease back and enjoy the pillowy sensation of rising thermal currents brushing your face as the huge wingspans of raptors open before you in a coordinated show of aerial acrobatics. A hike on the Ice Age Trail Gibraltar Segment is no less than a total immersive experience. Below I’ll share all I know about my favorite segment of the IAT from the history of this area to the birds and plants you’ll find along the hiking trail at this ancient sacred place.

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Ice Age Trail at the Rocks of Gibraltar State Natural Area

TRAIL GUIDE

Mile 0.0 – 1.5 | Merrimac Ferry to Steenbock Preserve

From the State Historical Marker, commemorating the ferry crossing in continuous operation since 1848, begin a footpath that threads between Highway 113 and the Wisconsin and Southern Railroad line. Beyond the din of motorboat traffic on Lake Wisconsin Listen for Black-capped Chickadees and Downy Woodpeckers working the lower canopy.

Cautiously cross the busy highway at Northern Cross Arm Road and begin a steep climb on switchbacks into a stand of cedar. Listen for pine warblers and admire the view of Lake Wisconsin and the Baraboo Hills beyond. The busy highway below will remind you of how far and quickly you’ve climbed. You’ll probably also be out of breath. Here you’ll notice the soil thinning beneath your feet and a shift from damp lakeshore topsoil to dry sandy uplands.

The trail rolls through the summer flowers of a goat prairie. These upland prairies are small, warm, windy openings on south and west facing slopes where only sun-hardened grasses and wildflowers survive. Butterfly milkweed, hoary puccoon, black-eyed Susan, and blazing star bloom in progression. Regal fritillary butterflies may float past your knees. An adjoining white blazed loop option descends and traces the edge of prairie and a wooded ravine.

The forest welcomes hikers into the shade of an upland oak savanna. Bur and white oaks spread wide-branched over little bluestem and big bluestem grasses. Dappled sunlight patterns the ground. Look for Lark Sparrow tail-flashes and the scratchy call of the Eastern Towhee from the shrubby edges. Here you’ll find a side spur that leads to a dispersed camping area. This campsite is set aside for the occasional long distance hikers in need of a single night layover on the trail – it is non-reservable and is always open to all comers. The site is rustic and does not feature any water sources, toilets, and campfires are not allowed.

Mile 1.5 – 2.2 | Steenbock Overlook to Slack Hill Road

The trail emerges from a recent reroute at a grand view with a log bench and trail registry. Around the bend from the overlook a second white blazed loop option descends on a gentle line to the parking area at Slack Hill Road. Staying on the yellow-blazed Ice Age Trail the route once again enters a darkened pine plantation.

In a roller-coaster of switchbacks the trail descends quickly in a dry stream ravine beneath a mature hardwood canopy. The trail emerges at a parking lot on Slack Hill Road.

Mile 2.2 – 2.6 | Slack Hill Road to Gibraltar Rock State Natural Area

Turn onto Slack Hill Road and then onto County Road V. Hold onto your children and with great caution proceed a quarter-mile to Gibraltar Rock Road. The shoulders on this highway are in desperate need of widening. Until the Columbia County Highway Department gets wise to this need, hikers are pinched between unforgiving edges with a steep drop-off and a high speed and busy highway with blind corners and hills obscuring drivers’ views of you. Contrary to the usual advice of hiking to the side of the oncoming traffic lane, the more spacious shoulder is on the west side where you may take a few steps off the highway to safety.

Mile 2.6-4.0 | The Ascent to Gibraltar Rock Overlook

Find the yellow blazed trailhead and follow off-road and upward through steep ravines carved long ago by spring meltwater. Ancient St. Peter Sandstone appears in crumbly ledges—soft, pale, and easily weathered. Look for wild columbine blooming in cracks and shady pockets.

A surprise stand of white and red pine offers a cool, resin-scented resting place. Red-breasted Nuthatches and Pine Warblers make a racket here at dawn chorus. A hand-laid winding stone staircase completes the ascent to the top of this dolomite capped sandstone butte.

The bluff opens to bald rock shelves and the famous overlooks. Pastoral fields, pastures and paddocks, and Lake Wisconsin spreads wide below. Look for huge turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks riding rising thermals—often so close you could reach out to touch them. This is a natural place to rest long, breathe slow, and stay awhile. Cedar trees set back from the cliff edge are excellent hammock supports for those who want to enjoy a long read of a field guide on a lazy summer afternoon.

Mile 2.6-4.0 | The Descent to The Southern Trailhead

Descend through quiet hardwoods and emerge into a final stretch of a tallgrass prairie, where Monarch butterflies drift among the grasses in late summer. A thinner true goat prairie holds the southern exposure on this steep hill. You’ll pass it in the shade of the forest edge. Before reaching the large parking lot at the trail end you’ll spot a new connector trail that safely loops back to Gibraltar Rock Road. To avoid parking congestion, avoid the all-too-popular parking lot at Gibraltar Rock Road and instead use the new larger lot on County V at this southern trailhead. Otherwise, be on your way to return on a 10-mile out-and-back that you are a little more than halfway through.

HISTORY – Where Roads and Rivers Meet

For thousands of years, the Wisconsin River served as a primary travel corridor for Ho-Chunk and other indigenous people. The River linked trade networks across the region. Ancestors to today’s Ho Chunk, ancient mound builders of the Mississippian Culture likely ruled this area, though any effigy mounds that may have been along the Gibraltar Segment have long-since been destroyed. It’s likely these cultures maintained footpaths parallelling the Wisconsin River. Trails which would appear similar to the tread of today’s Ice Age Trail Gibraltar Segment.

Imagine the Wisconsin River in the age of exploration. Before the river was dammed this stretch was a shallow braided labyrinth of streams and riffles, dotted with hundreds of Islands. When French explorers and fur traders arrived in the 1600’s they explored these channels from long dugout canoes. Marquette and Jolliet passed this stretch in 1673. Just upstream lay a grand portage, a narrow divide where travelers carried canoes between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers creating a nearly continuous water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. A strategically important waterway – The lower Wisconsin River was defended in the early 1800’s by Fort Winnebago at Portage, while Fort Crawford anchored the river highway downstream in Prairie du Chien. Military movements and campaigns in this area were frequent and storied during America’s pioneer period.

The mid-1800’s was the heyday of the river economy. Logging boomed in the area and men drove thousands of logs downstream every spring. Steamboats navigated the river between Sauk City and Portage. Crossing the river, however, was difficult. In 1844, a local settler named Matthew Mattson established Matt’s Ferry at Merrimac, pulling a flat-bottomed boat across the current by drawing hand-over-hand on heavy ropes stretched between the riverbanks. The arrival of the Chicago and North Western Railway in the late 19th century shifted most long-distance travel from river to rail. Here the railroad crossed the Wisconsin on a steel truss bridge. Milwaukee and Chicago tourists, many of them first generation immigrants new to this nation, enjoyed their first wonderous views of the Baraboo Hills here on their way to Devils Lake aboard excursion trains.

By the turn of the 20th century, modern technology was rapidly changing the modes of transportation and with it the way the Wisconsin River was used. Long a trading highway and log conveyor, the power of the river would next be exploited for making electricity. In 1914 the Prairie du Sac Dam was built downstream of Gibraltar Rock. The river was transformed into Lake Wisconsin. So much power was created by this massive first-of-its-kind dam that the Sauk area became a center of military manufacturing, helping the US win World War II.

Coal fired steam locomotives still chugged in the valley below as conservationist and landscape architect Jens Jensen stood with wonder atop Gibraltar Rock’s overlook, then known as Richmond Memorial Park. He later became determined to bring state recognition to this place which would eventually be dedicated as a State Natural Area.

By the mid 20th century another idea began to take shape in the imagination of another conservationist with the vision of a long-distance footpath tracing the terminal glacial moraines of the Ice Age. The result is the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, which now links Devil’s Lake to Lodi by way of Gibraltar Rock. The Ice Age Trail returns travel here to footsteps, our most ancient and still our most reliable mode of transport.

FIELD GUIDE: GEOLOGY

The geology uncovered and thrusting beyond the rich topsoil so famously farmed in Wisconsin tells a much longer pre-human history of the Ice Age Trail Gibraltar Rock Segment. The cliffs and knobs along the trail are carved mostly from St. Peter Sandstone, a soft, pale, and described by some as a sugary stone formed about 450 million years ago when a shallow inland sea covered this area of Wisconsin. Its grains are so well-rounded and loosely cemented that the rock can crumble between your fingers. Hikers will notice how it weathers into smooth ledges and alcoves as they ascend towards the overlooks. Capping the summit is a much tougher layer of Prairie du Chien dolomite. This is a light gray, cherty limestone that forms the flat and resistant lid of the Gibraltar Rock butte. Dolomite breaks in blocky, angular slabs and protects the softer sandstone below from eroding from above.

Scattered across the slopes, hikers will also encounter dark, rounded glacial erratics, hard granite and basalt boulders carried here by glaciers during the last Ice Age. These foreign stones contrast sharply with the local sandstone and dolomite, and their presence tells of the massive amounts of ice that once flowed around the Baraboo Hills.

FIELD GUDE: Birds of the Gibraltar Rock Segment

Turkey Vulture

One of the most unforgettable sights on this segment is the turkey vulture riding warm updrafts along the cliff faces of Gibraltar Rock. From the overlook, hikers stand nearly eye-level with their circling glide, the birds’ two-tone wings held in a loose V shape. They are most active on sunny, warm days when rising thermals lift them effortlessly over the goat prairie slopes in search of carrion below. Their presence is a signature experience of a visit to the bluff.

Red-headed Woodpecker

In the oak savanna sections leading toward Slack Hill, watch for the red-headed woodpecker. Once a year round resident and one of Wisconsin’s most striking and increasingly uncommon birds. It prefers open-grown oaks with scattered snags and sunlit ground which there is plenty of between the Merrimac Ferry and Slack Hill Road. These woodpeckers hurl through the air overhead in acrobatic darting motions when they are feeding on flying insects. Look for its glossy red head and bold black-and-white wings in late spring through summer.

Eastern Towhee

Along the shrubby edges between prairie and woodland, especially where hazel and sumac edge into tall grasses, listen for the Eastern Towhee’s sharp, ringing song. These birds scratch for insects and seeds in dry leaf litter. They are most visible in May through July, when males perch on low branches to sing at dawn and dusk.

Pine Warbler

On the approach to the summit, the trail passes through surprising stands of red and white pine, remnants of northern forest echoes on this southern landscape. In spring and early summer, you may hear the Pine Warbler’s soft, musical trill drifting from high in the canopy. They move slowly among pine needles, gleaning insects.

Red-tailed Hawk

A permanent resident of Wisconsin, the red-tailed hawk patrols the valley below overlooks. Broad-winged and steady, it uses height to hunt voles, ground squirrels, and snakes in the open grasslands. Its rasping, descending scream is one of the defining sounds of this landscape.

FIELD GUIDE PLANTS

Trees and Plants of the Gibraltar Rock Segment

Setting this segment apart from others in Southern Wisconsin the IAT Gibraltar Segment trail feel unexpectedly northern. In several stretches you’ll walk beneath red and white pines, tall and straight like telephone poles with soft and long whispering needles. These pines thrive because the underlying St. Peter Sandstone breaks down into dry, sandy soils where they outcompete fussier hardwoods. Turn a corner, and the landscape changes again. The Sunbaked goat prairie slopes facing south and west fall away into cooler north and east facing hollows where moisture lingers. This hike features a rare blend of prairie, savanna, hardwood forest, and pine glade all woven together by the tread of the trail.

In the oak savanna, wide-armed bur oaks stand far apart over tall grass, their thick bark cracked and corky, built to handle drought, wind, and unbothered by wildfires. On rocky overlooks, picturesque eastern red cedar trees are rooted into bare stone, their evergreen needles aromatic and their forms wind-sculpted and begging to be painted plein air. Slip into a ravine, and the forest closes in. Oak, basswood, ash, and black cherry rise in close straight ranks, their broad leaves filtering the light into a soft green glow. The air becomes cooler, the soil richer and darker, an instant shift from sunburnt prairie to shaded forest. Wildflowers follow these transitions. On softer soils beneath open hardwood canopy, look for shooting stars in late spring directly beside the trail tread, their backward-swept petals shaped like tiny white and pink comets. In the savanna and prairie fringes, bright butterfly milkweed glows orange against the grass and draws monarch butterflies, while hoary puccoon brightens early summer with silky leaves and golden blooms. Along sandstone ledges, wild columbine hangs delicate red-and-yellow bells from cracks in the rock, and little bluestem grass turns coppery-pink in evening light. Tall grasses and pine needles make this hike colorful in all seasons – even in the gray days of winter.

FIELD GUIDE: Fishing at the Merrimac Ferry Landing

The Merrimac Ferry landing offers something rare along the southern Ice Age Trail, an easy opportunity to shore fish right at the trailhead. At this spot on Lake Wisconsin, the old Wisconsin River channel still shapes fish movement, and hikers with a light tackle kit can do well before or after a hike. A fishing dock and platform extends out toward the railroad bridge. It’s far too distant to cast beneath the bridge pilings themselves, but the platform puts you close enough to reach moving current where fish travel along the edge of deeper water.

Overview: Ice Age National Scenic Trail - Gibraltar Segment

COUNTY
COLUMBIA COUNTY
COMMUNITIES
WEST POINT, MERRIMAC, LODI
TOTAL MILES
4.6-MILE POINT-TO-POINT
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE-DIFFICULT
LOWEST ELEVATION
770 AMSL
HIGHEST ELEVATION
1270 AMSL
TOTAL ELEVATION GAIN
1140 FT
TOTAL ELEVATION LOST
-1050 FT

CAMPING
Disperse Camping Area

POINTS OF INTEREST
Lake Wisconsin, Merrimac Ferry, Disperse Camp Site, Rocks of Gibraltar Natural Area, White Blazed Trail

NEXT IAT SEGMENT EASTBOUND
Merrimac Segment
NEXT IAT SEGMENT WESTBOUND
Fern Glen Segment

Directions and Trail Map

DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE PDF USGS TOPOGRAPHIC MAP
LODI QUADRANGLE

Click Map Image to load the full interactive map.

Address for your GPS: Nearest address (use coordinates instead): W12037 Wisconsin 113 Lodi WI 53555
| coordinates: N43.365512,W089.619063 |

From Milwaukee	2 Hours
From Madison	35 Minutes
From Green Bay	2.5 Hours
From Wausau	2 Hours
From Minneapolis	4 Hours
From Chicago	3 Hours

Photos

View from cliff with vulture flying cropped by trees

Rocks of Gibraltar Natural Area - West Point WI