Trempealeau Mountain (in Wisconsin's Perrot Park, on the Mississippi River). I can't find this information through Google, but according to the signs that I should have photographed, the Indians believed this mountain had been moved from the shore out to this place. See how oddly carved off it looks? It is a unique geological feature on the Mississippi River, used as a landmark in navigation, I think, because it's an island that is taller than the surrounding bluffs. I couldn't get a better picture, because, though we were on a high bluff — Brady Bluff — there was vegetation blocking part of the water that rings the mountain, and it was also pretty hazy. Anyway, it's a mountain whose foot is bathed by water and whose grandeur is not conveyed by my photograph.
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15 comments:
The Tree of Heaven weed trees almost give it a tropical look.
Yeah F4P, almost looks like Hawaii.
Is it really classified as a mountain rather than a hill?
So trompe d'oeil or trempe à l’eau?
Tree of Heaven? Sumac, I'd bet.
Love the bluffs along the great Mississip.
Looks like some of the bends of the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania.
Very pretty.
After my own visit to the site I concluded that in past times the "mountain" was more surrounded by water on all sides. Subtle changes in river flow and silting up may have diminished the striking visual effect which led to its naming.
Woah! Now I know I have to go to Minnesota (or Wisconsin, or whatever). Why, that reaches an elevation of 991 feet! I might get a nosebleed!
That is sumac, a plant that is native to New England and probably Wisconsin.
Recently, I took the train from Boston to Montana. From the Mohawk valley in NY to MT, a very long way, the landscape was usually flat. Wisconsin did seem a little hillier than its neighbors.
I'm sorry but mountain and Wisconsin cannot appear in the same sentence.
EPR: The dunked-in-water mountain.
Is it really classified as a mountain rather than a hill?
Growing up in Colorado, I would concur. The foothills there go up 2,500 feet or so and are far from being considered mountains.
Isn't that a monadnock or something?
The Winnebago Indians are said to have called this whole rocky eminence Hay-nee-ah-chah, or soaking mountain, the Dakota Indians Min-nay-chon-ka-ha, or bluff in the water, and the Sioux Pah-hah-dah, or mountain separated by water. Accordingly the French continued the same name in the form La Montagne qui trempe à l’eau, or the hill which soaks in the water. Our modern name Trempealeau is made up of the last four words of the French phrase. It has also been translated Mountain Island, the mountain that is steeped in the water, the bluff rising out of the water, the mountain which sinks or inclines, or dips in the water. It might well be called the hill with its base in the water, or, simply, the hill in the river.
Lawrence Martin, "The Physical Geography Of Wisconsin" University of Wisconsin Press: Madison Wisconsin: 1965. pp 149-150.
There are some drawings alongside showing how the river used to flow on both sides of the hill.
I suggest a drive up the other side, on the road Bob Dylan made famous - Highway 61. It's beautiful, with sweeping vistas, bluffs and hills along the river.
It's also fun to rent a houseboat and explore around on the river.
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