Pattison Falls State Park
Hiking in Pattison Falls State Park, Wisconsin | Fourth of July Weekend with Family in Northern Minnesota | July 2026
We began our day on the banks of the St. Croix River with the goal for today being to making it to my sister’s home in Northern Minnesota. We were only a couple hours away, and she had errands to run that morning, so we had plenty of time to kill on our drive North. Our swim in the river gave us the illusion that we would be showing up ‘cleaner’ than we would be otherwise…but we were also very ready to take real showers and spend a little time in air conditioning while visiting family!
After breakfast, we followed the highway North to Pattison Falls State Park. Today was possibly our last day in Wisconsin for the year, which meant the last day we could use our annual state park pass that we had bought in April. If that is the case, I think it’s safe to say that we got our money’s worth out of it, having visited 9 different parks, some multiple times on different days. We’ve also made great progress on Wisconsin counties, leaving only a large patch of counties in the Northeast that we can maybe get in one trip someday in the future, if we’re ambitious enough.
We arrived at the park and parked in the large lot on the North side. Using letterboxing as a guide, we came up with a long 4 mile loop trail that would take us near both the Big and Little Manitou Falls. First, we followed the trails towards the Little Falls, following the North Country Trail for some of the way. We walked along the North side of Interfalls Lake and could hear a loon calling in the distance. Between the tall pine trees, the jagged rocks in the streams, and the reddish tint to the water, it definitely felt like we were back in the Northwoods. We enjoyed taking whatever chance we got to just stand or sit by the flowing water and appreciate the simple beauty. When we believed that we were nearing Little Manitou Falls, we followed a worn path to the side of the trail to get a view of the base of the falls. While it was a serene setting, we were a little disappointed by how little the falls really were. We justified it as just being Wisconsin — outside of the driftless or hillier regions, how large of waterfalls should we expect?
We looped back around the West side of the lake and towards the top of the Big Falls. The trail was harder to follow on this side, narrow and a little overgrown, with more elevation change. It was getting to be quite warm, and it wasn’t even noon, so we almost considered not making the effort to cross the road to see the waterfall. But the sunk cost of the state park pass and long walk we’d already done persuaded us and we wandered our way over, only to find a VERY tall waterfall cascading over jagged boulders. In fact, after a quick fact check, we learned that it is the tallest waterfall in Wisconsin! And it did not disappoint — our expectations had been quite misplaced.
Left: Little Manitou Falls / Right: Big Manitou Falls (the tallest waterfall in Wisconsin)
After grabbing our pictures from both sides of the waterfall (as well as some laughs at some rather strange children who kept repeating the phrase “Chi-cken, Ba-na-na” over and over), we headed back towards the van. Along the way we considered our experience at Little Manitou Falls. Had we actually seen the falls? Or were we mistaken? A quick google search (and seeing a picture in the park office) showed us that we had in fact not gone far enough down the North Country Trail and had missed the Little Falls entirely. Fortunately, we did not have to re-hike the 2-ish miles, because there is a smaller trailhead on the South side of the park that takes you right to these falls. After getting our park stamps from the visitor center, we backtracked to the South lot to see them.
Top: Big Manitou Falls / Bottom: Little Manitou Falls
When we arrived, we walked down the somewhat steep trail, carefully navigating to the best viewpoint at the base of the falls. As it turned out, Little Manitou Falls was our favorite of the two waterfalls, but only because you can see it from its base. We think that most waterfalls are best viewed from the bottom (though getting to the base of Big Manitou Falls would likely be a very steep climb, and it’d probably be hard to capture its true size from that angle). Little Manitou is made up of twin waterfalls, which look even bigger in person than they did in the pictures. Seeing waterfalls like these in the North Country always reminds me of our honeymoon, when we saw some of our first waterfalls together on our first ever road trip alone together, such as Gooseberry Falls in Minnesota and Kakabekka Falls in Ontario.
Satisfied with our last adventure in Wisconsin, we continued our drive up to Superior-Duluth, and then onwards to my sister’s home. Since July 4th weekend was now upon us, we were especially thankful to be off the road both for the increase in crowds and likely higher demand for camping spots, but also for the relentless heat. We arrived in the early afternoon, and were happily reunited with my sister and her husband, and our nieces and nephew. It had been over 2 years since we had last seen them, but the kids warmed up to us right away, and we enjoyed getting to know each of their personalities and interests over the weekend.
To celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States, we had a potluck with their friends and watched fireworks, which led to getting caught in the rain. We spent a considerable amount of time goofing off with our nieces and nephew; making home videos (that perfectly capture each child’s personality), teaching them how to metal detect, and playing board games. On July 4th itself, we got a hike in before the heat came in, returning to the Laurentian Divide. Unfortunately we were just a little too early for the wild blueberries to be ripe. I also took each of the kids on a kayak ride around Silver Lake to see the largest floating Loon up close.
We stayed busy our whole time here, and because of that the long weekend flew by. The time came for us to move back into the van and continue on our journey. And with perhaps more tears than are really justified, we said our goodbyes and got back on the road. It isn’t easy to make it this far North, but we’re thankful we had the opportunity to spend some time with family and get to know them better and experience a taste of what their life is like in Northern Minnesota.
