Kettle Moraine State Park North, WI

The first and largest unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest offers year-round recreation among world-famous glacial landforms. Visitors can swim at three beaches, enjoy challenging mountain biking trails or groomed ski trails, hike the Ice Age Trail, take in a nature program, or just escape among 30,000 acres of rolling, wooded hills and prairies. The Ice Age Visitor Center is open all year. The forest has over 350 campsites

Five backpack shelters are available year-round for rustic camping along the 31 miles [PDF] of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. Each site offers a roofed trail shelter, fire ring and pit toilet. Drinking water is available less than a mile from each site. Backpack shelter camping in the Northern Unit [PDF] Forest map [PDF]

These sites are not accessible by vehicle. All camping equipment must be backpacked in and all refuse packed out. A camping permit is required and you must camp at a designated shelter campsite. Only one reservation (camping party) is allowed per site per night. Reservations are limited to 10 persons per site and are limited to one night per site. Another site may be reserved for a second night and a third night at a third site. You must call 888-947-2757, to make backpack shelter reservations. Backpack shelter reservations cannot be made online. Reservations are required for all backpack sites. If all the backpack sites are reserved for a weekend night on your hiking trip, consider staying one night at the Mauthe Lake campground.

We describe our hiking and camping plans. We started at the Parnell Observation Tower parking lot. Our original plan was for Dad to hike for a week but it turns out that late February and early March are really the worst for thru hiking in Wisconsin. We have the newly published Ice Age Trail Guidebook, we made reservations for the shelters, we used the Ice Age Trail Alliance Website for trail information and we called the local Alliance HQ as well as a Trail volunteer – in all cases our primary question was about water supply. The only answer we received, repeatedly, from all of those sources was that the water systems *may be* turned off. Well… we asked a few random hikers once we arrived and they were pretty certain that the water is *never* turned on until April. There is a big difference in planning between *maybe* and *never.* At this time of year, the lakes and streams are still frozen while the random snow is dirty patches of ice. Again, this information would be nice to know on the website or the shelter reservations or even the humans we talked with. Dad was pretty upset that his spring break hike was cancelled. Sure, he could have chipped ice and boiled it for a week, but he didn’t plan on needing that much gas. So, if you are a thru-hiker, Wisconsin and the Ice Age Trail are not ideal in March.

The Parnell Observation deck was closed so we headed directly to the Ice Age Trail connection. This is very close to Shelter 4.

We approach Shelter 4 and dad thinks he can walk and talk while filming. Use the 360° features to see what he is trying to say. We walk into the shelter and film. If you want to see what Shelter 4 looks like, this is it. Hint: Shelter 4 has a cement floor.

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There are a lot of day hikers and single night campers along this portion of the Ice Age Trail. If you venture north of Shelter 4, you’ll come across the power lines before the highway. We literally stumble across rocks that are very unstable due to the wet silt ground. It was interesting to think about how all of these transient rocks arrived to this destination and how stable this area is even after thousands of years.

Although its night time, we set up for a homemade, dehydrated gourmet dinner. First, for Ryan, we made vegan chili and dehydrated it for the hike. Tonight, we rehydrate it. Second, for Scott, we made a campsite version of Cullen Skink chowder; a Scottish smoked Haddock chowder. Tonight we used canned smoked Clams, so this is a cross between smoked Clam chowder and Cullen Skink. It all worked and the meal was very tasty.

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Shelter 5 in Kettle Moraine North along the Ice Age Trail. The shelter is in good shape as of 2021, with a dirt floor and side benches. The pit toilet seemed decent enough. We never found any water source but its possible a stream runs at the bottom of the hill. The area around shelter 5 is pretty nice and decently quiet. There is plenty of wood and a good fire pit area. The stars come out quickly, we had a clear sky this night.

Today we are eating Sunflower seed butter (peanut butter) and pumpkin-apricot confit (jelly) on homemade bread. Eating lunch on trail is always a special time for dad. Then we talk about dad’s new Garmin Fenix 5 plus X, which Neil and I picked up for his birthday. We both love the Garmin Fenix series for hiking and golfing.

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I explain a bit about the Parnell Observation Tower trail and the connection with the Ice Age Trail.

I climbed to the top of the Parnell Observation Tower and this is the view. use your 360° controls to spin the view around and take a look. I talk about the local geologic features and you can see 22 miles to Lake Michigan. Don’t forget to subscribe to this channel.

Beginning April 30, 2021, playgrounds and observation towers will reopen. Office buildings, visitor centers, enclosed shelters and nature centers remain closed until further notice.

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We both had a great time getting our feet on the Ice Age Trail. March is most likely the worst month for hiking the trail and we’d recommend choosing a different month.

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