Fifty By 50: Wisconsin Dells - Mr. Pancake, Devil's Lake State Park, Tumbled Rock, Witches Gulch, Mt. Olympus Water Park (Sept.5, 2026)

I ended up having a pretty good sleep last night which I wasn't expecting so that was a nice surprise.

Jason headed out for an early run and while he was gone, I worked on my blog.

I'm still keeping it up this trip which feels amazing.

When Jason got back, we went out to get something to eat, we picked a place called Mr. Pancake.

The outside kind of looks like an old water wheel ship but it was raining so I didn't get a picture.

I had planned on going back later but I forgot.

The place was just hopping, just about every table was full and the lobby was filled with people waiting to eat so as soon as the tables emptied, they were filling them again.

I got the whole wheat banana pecan pancakes - they were good.

Jason had a bagel - he knew I wouldn't be able to finish mine so he planned on having some of that too.

He was right.

We had planned on taking the boat out to Witches Gulch first thing this morning but it was misty and foggy.

I wanted to make sure I'd be able to see everything really well and it was supposed to clear up by noonish.

So instead, on our waitresses recommendation, we decided to go check out Devil's Lake State Park.

A sign we saw on the way that I liked.

Then we also saw this pink pig punch buggy.

That license plate - so funny.

Made it to the park.

It cost just over $30 to enter the park.

We had a really hard time finding a spot to park but we did eventually find one.

We had to walk a little ways to get to the park but that was fine.

It was a lovely park and there were lots of people there enjoying it.

Even though it looks grey and cloudy out, it was hot, like right around 29C.

Perfect for a day at the beach.

The rocky cliffs are one of the features of this park and we could see people over walking by them so we decided to head over that way to see if there was a trail.

I kind of wished I had my bathing suit on so I could jump in and go for a swim.

We found a trail.

It was a smaller trail but very easy to follow.

It was a bumpy trail, lots of turns and roots sticking out but it was fun to follow.

Parts went through the woods and parts were out in the open and parts went through the rocks.

Of course Jason saw some flowers.

And some more flowers.

My Honey and I.

Some of the rocks were kind of balancing on other rocks - it was kind of amazing that they didn't topple over.

The trail.

Across the lake was part of the park too and there were trails all through there too.

This little guy was out fishing by himself - he was really into it.

These guys were jumping off the rocks into the water.

JUMP!

Jason taking videos.

The path even went through the rocks.

We found out that this trail went right around the whole lake - it took about 2 hours to do.

We did not do that but I would like to go back someday and do it.

We went quite a ways though, maybe about a third of the way before turned back.

This is the trail that took us back up to the vehicle.

It was pretty steep but at least it was short.

More flowers Jason noticed.

Then I noticed that there was a fuzzy little caterpillar on one of them.

I had noticed a nice looking restaurant on our way to the park and we were feeling a bit hungry after our walk so we stopped there for a little something to eat.

This beautiful old barn was right next to the parking lot.

This was the restaurant.

It had two buildings then in the center was an outdoor seating area.

It was called Tumbled Rock

Jason got the sweet cream and pepper soup.

I got the elote (street corn).

We also shared some steak bites and they were fantastic.

My Honey and I.

We liked it so much that we might go back tonight for supper.

From there, we headed straight to the Dells boats tours and got tickets to go for the Upper Dells tour, this is the one that goes out to Witches Gulch.

Ever since I saw pictures of it, I have wanted to see it in person, it's one of the main reasons that we came back on this trip.

When we were here in April, they weren't open yet.

We ended up getting seated in the bottom of the boat - I would have preferred to be up top but it ended up being fine.

Then we were off.

This is where the boats leave from.

The Vue is the hotel we stayed in last time we were here.

We didn't love it at the time but at least it had a window - it even had a small balcony with a view of the river with a couple chairs and a small table.

Sure wishing we had that now.

It's really cool how the water has eroded into the cliffs and there are these ledges that stick out over the water.

There were all these secret little beaches along the shoreline, some you could only access by boat and others you could see trails too.

Lots of them had boats in them and people out swimming and just hanging out enjoying the day.

The cliffs look so cool.

This one they call the stack because it looks like a stack of pancakes just standing there all by itself.

Video of the stack of pancakes.

This particular section looks like a mans profile.

This rock kind of standing there, the locals called the shield or the giant's shield or something.

The guide said that year to year, the water level changes and some years, the water gets so high that it almost covers this.

That's kind of hard to imagine.

This river is open to everyone and it was just full of activity today.

There were other boaters, people in canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, all kinds of stuff going on.

The guide also told us that when the sun shines on this cliff at certain times of the day, it looks like it's golden.

The guide also told us that even though the water is brown and though you might think it is dirty, it is not.

It is some of the cleanest river water around - it just gets its color from the roots of Tamarack trees at the start of the river.

The water does look very clear.

We docked in this section and then we all disembarked so we could go check out Witches Gulch.

Here we go.

There is a wooden walkway you take and it leads you through this gap in the cliffs.

The rocks area all covered in this vibrant green moss and it just has this unreal quality to it.

They named some sections of it.

This was witches bathtub.

It was twisty and windy.

Some sections got really narrow and the other sections were wider.

At the end was a concession stand and washrooms.

We were the last on the boat so we were pretty much the first ones off so I made a beeline right to the bathrooms to beat the rush.

There were a lot of people there and boats were coming and going one after another.

They gave us about 25 minutes to explore so I wanted to get a chance to do that.

We took some video.

Another video.

One more, so beautiful.

It feels like being in a magical fairytale world or something.

The way back to the boat we kind of just took our time so we could soak it all in.

This is one of the narrow sections.

It was just so GREEN!

That green moss - wow!

This was one of the wider sections and there was water running along it that was so clear.

Everything felt so fresh and clean, even the air.

Moi.

Jason.

They called this witches window.

Witches bathtub again and witches falls.

We kind of had this whole section to ourselves for a minute - that was nice.

It was so pretty - I'm so glad we came to see it.

Whirlpool chambers.

So many pictures but we couldn't help ourselves.

Then it was back to the boat.

We were on the Belle Boyd.

Then we were off to our next stop.

More of those pretty 'golden' cliffs.

The next stop, the boat dropped us off at one point the we had to follow the whole path and meet the boat back at a different spot.

So if you went, you couldn't change your mind and go back.

We were treated to some pretty views of the river.

Of course we decided to go.

I didn't even know this was a stop when we booked the trip but they brought us to see Stand Rock.

The significance of it is that in the late 1800's, H. H. Bennett took a picture of his son jumping from one rock to another to prove he had invented stop motion photography.

The distance of the jump is about 5.5 feet and after this, folks would come and pay to jump it but for obvious reasons they put a stop to that.

Our tour guide did tell us that he made the jump himself about 30 years ago.

While humans no longer jump it, they do have dogs do the jump and we were going to get to see that today (they do have a net set up between the two stands just in case).

This is the famous picture Bennett took.

Dog jumping across Stand rock.

There was another concession stand with this statue in it.

I love how the cliffs looks like flat rocks all stacked on top of each other.

View from the lookout point we passed.

We had to walk back down there to get back on the boat.

Our guide took a picture of the two of us.

The cliffs and rocks here are so cool.

Jason.

So nice.

Somebody left a little stuffie here.

The next boat coming in.

The sun came out and it was a gorgeous sunny day.

We enjoyed the sail back.

There were even more people out on the lake now.

They all look like they are having a great time.

After the sail, we went back to the hotel, got our suits on and headed to the water park.

We got free passes to all of the Mt. Olympus parks.

This is the building to the indoor water park.

Then this was the outdoor water park.

This slide looked scary - and I wouldn't want to have to go up all of those stairs to get to the top.

They really leaned into the roman empire theme here.

This is the indoor area.

There were several pools, a hot tub, a lazy river and this ladder leads to a rotating water slide.

We swam in this pool for a bit.

There was a nice toddler section too - they had one indoors and outdoors.

We went out to the wave pool.

Poseidon's Rage.

The wave came every 2 minutes or so - it was so powerful.

Super high too - the wall it came out by was about 12 feet tall we figured and the wave went right to the top of it.

There was also an amusement park with rides and things right next to the water park which was all part of the Mt. Olympus park.

It had a roller coaster and all kinds of other rides.

This was another of the pools in the park, it was my favorite and I hung out in it until it was time for us to go.

Another nod to the Roman empire.

Hard to read but it says that Wisconsin Dells is the water park capital of the world.

One of the rides over in the amusement park.

We spent about 2 hours in the park then we went back to the room and changed and headed back to the Tumbled Rock to get some supper.

It's over in a neighboring town called Baraboo which is about 20 minutes away.

There is a restaurant in town called Moosejaw Pizza and they have these vehicles with these moose on top of them.

I kept meaning to stop there and take a picture of one but kept forgetting and fortuitously, one pulled up beside us in traffic.

This cloud in the sky looked cool.

The barn from this morning with the sun setting behind it.

There was a residential area right next to the barn and the homes in there looked amazing.

We had roasted carrots with feta.

Jason had a burger.

I had the walleye with blistered green beans and fingerling potatoes.

All the food was delicious.

There was some live entertainment going on and they were pretty good.

The sky was looking so nice and clear.

We stopped in at one of the hotels in town (the Holiday Inn Express which looked like it had an awesome outdoor pool) because it had the car from the National Lampoons Vacation.