My trip to Interstate went as I expected. It was loaded with park goers and the draw was fishing, hanging out, and generally being noisy while enjoying the rapids section of the river.
The scenery is outstanding at this park and is a nice quick visit or place to hang out and get some fresh air provided you like spending time out with a crowd. Again this is the type of space that provides a ton of value as they run river boat tours, it had rock climbing areas by permit, and caters to a city well setup for a tourist trap as the park space is right in the city of Taylors Falls and is across the river from Wisconsin's much larger parcel by the same name. This one two punch is a probably a great combo and excellent place for the locals and camping visitors to have a lot of fun, hit a rootbeer stand down the road and take in some shopping.
The rapids area of the river makes for a nice view.
Several rock ledges and spaces cover the park.
A lone pine making a living out of the rock face.
From birding perspectives the space has some good swallow potential and I picked up a surprise Louisiana Waterthrush singing actively. Though it was hard to tell with sound reverb, the bird may have been in Wisconsin.
In total I was present long enough for a sign selfie and some river pics with nice rock formations.
The Great: Cool views of the river and nice hard angled rock features make this space run to explore and likely provides thrill seekers some rafting fun while offering rock climbers some opportunity to scale some fun features.
The Meh: As noted this will be an active location with a lot of humans in the mix. I didn't do any hiking or exploring at the camp area and alternate entrance so that might over a bit more solitude, but even the trail that bridges to the two segments is pretty much a rocky hike along or above a busy road.
The Verdict: Maybe I'll try an early morning effort to snag some park birds in the future, but really this space is not my cup of tea. The park offers about 3 miles of total hiking, but a lot of that links human heavy spaces and I don't see it being something I'll spend much time investigating. I'm sure the park does provide what it is intended to and that is a good thing. I'd like my wife to see the river and rocks as we hiked the Wisconsin side early in our relationship and enjoyed that space when we were younger.
I did make quick for Wild River and produced a wide ranging hike that had me cross several habitat types with the most exciting being the hidden short grass prairie just north of the horse camp. This provided me state park year birds in Lark Sparrow and Grasshopper Sparrow so I was very happy to pick those up on a 5 mile loop hike.
One of the Lark Sparrows I spotted on my hike.
Around the same time I had Red-breasted Nuthatch calling from the pines near the parking area for the horse camp as well. Even with my late start I cleared 47 species of birds and spent a lot of time in open hot prairie spaces that haven't really gotten hopping yet for activity.
While near the river I picked up some good pictures of Northern Map Turtle that gave me much better understanding of them than the limited pics I had from Afton State Park a couple weeks back.
Northern Map Turtle showing the head pattern with round yellow spot behind the eye.
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