Once upon a time, Minnesota was home to 18 million acres of prairie lands. Now, only a little over 1 percent of native prairie remains. Blue Mounds State Park is home to some of that native tallgrass prairie that once covered so much of western and southern Minnesota. The abundant wildflowers in the prairie, the herd of bison, and Sioux Quartzite rock outcroppings and cliffs are some of the unique and wonderful features of this state park.
First off, you should know that there is a Blue Mounds State Park in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. This post is about the Minnesota park in the very southwest corner of the state by Luverne. When researching this park, I kept stumbling on the Wisconsin park, and for a while, had it in my head that the park we were heading to had a swimming pool. Wrong park, wrong state. There is a swimming pool and fitness center a few miles south in Luverne should you need to soak in some water. No word on a lazy river.
The park is located in Rock County, which is one of the four Minnesota counties without a natural lake. In 1937, there were several Works Project Administration (WPA) projects by the U.S. government completed at the park, including two dams to create lakes. One dam is still visible at the entrance to the park at Upper Mound Lake. In 2014, there was major flooding that breached the Lower Dam, causing the Lower Mound Lake to drain. We were a bit confused looking at older maps still up in the park that shows a “swimming beach” in a location that now has tall grasses bordering a meandering creek.
The campgrounds are located at the north entrance to the park. You can choose between a typical campground (tent or electric sites), group site, cart-in sites, or tipis. The main campground sites have little privacy between sites, but there is a relatively new clean toilet and shower building. It feels more like a commercial campground than most state park campgrounds we’ve been to. We were lucky to select the cart-in site campground and that was the right choice. They have good visual privacy from each other and are fairly close to parking, with three wheelbarrows to help the hauling. The sites are in the forested area and can get a bit buggy (mostly flies), but you know, it is Minnesota…
There are three tipi sites at the edge of the trees, in the prairie landscape. Kevin peeked into one of the empty tipis and it had a raised wood platform upon which to set up sleeping cots, air mattresses, pads, or however you get your sleep jam on.
Blue Mounds is home to a herd of about 100 bison. Each bison needs about 5 acres to thrive, so the herd is maintained by a fall auction each year. That means that herd was oversized by the number of baby bison, which was about 20. There is a bison viewing platform near the tipis and cart-in camping. There was no need for the platform on Saturday morning when we were there as the herd (most of them anyway) were hanging out along the fence line. The babies were curious, looking back at us, whereas the mamas and papas definitely had more of an attitude, snorting and snuffing. I wondered if we weren’t the ones on display in this situation?
We stopped at Minneopa State Park near Mankato on the way home, which also has a bison herd. Whereas Blue Mounds is fenced, the Minneopa bison range has a road they open for traffic through the area. We tuned our radio into information about bison and learned the DNR is managing the herds together with the Minnesota Zoo to ensure healthy genetics through a program called Minnesota Bison Conservation Herd. One issue is that early conservationists and ranchers used hybrid breeding of cattle with bison, so many of the 500,000 bison in North America today have some cattle DNA - and they don't do as well on a native prairie landscape. The Minnesota Bison Conservation Herd is striving to reclaim the pure bison genetics through the management of the herd. We probably would have heard that information if we went on the Bison Tour at Blue Mounds---but with our dog Ozzie with us this weekend, that wasn’t an option.
Speaking of Ozzie and wildlife, he had a run-in with a curious creature that we later figured out was a pocket gopher (likely Plains Pocket Gopher). This angry guy came after Ozzie as we were walking along the edge of a prairie. It was the most aggressive small creature I had ever seen. I was able to shoot this quick video. I guess they are rarely seen above ground and I doubt this mad guy had very good eyesight.
Other wildlife we saw here: several white-tailed deer, rabbits, garter snake, several varieties of hawks, and a great many songbirds.
Blue Mounds is a relatively small park with trails for hiking and biking. We hiked the Mound Creek Trail to the north around the campground, Upper Mound Lake, and then circled around at a new bridge to the east of the park, which didn’t show up on the maps.
On Saturday morning, we skipped our planned breakfast burritos to get out hiking on the east trails (Mound Trail and Upper Cliffline Trail) before it got too hot. We failed. It was hot by the time we started and with little breeze and no shade. Ozzie was NOT happy with the scene and was dragging, and lolling behind. As we gained elevation the breeze picked up a bit and helped keep us a little cooler. These hikes were about appreciating the beauty of the interconnected prairie system- the abundant wildflowers and bees, the prairie grasses and birds, the outcropping of rocks, and the view from this raised “mound” to the agrarian landscape beyond. One couldn’t help but think about the scenes from Little House on the Prairie and think about life on the prairie for the Indigenous peoples who were here long before white people came in to mess everything up.
One highlight of the hiking loop was the Historic Quarry, where the pink quartzite was quarried. These dramatically colorful stone cliffs are a favorite for rock climbers. We visited this quarry from above twice and once at the base for different but equally impressive views.
The park is home to 185 different species of wildflowers. I was excited to find one blooming Prickly Pear Cactus. These bloom late June and early July, but it seemed like most had already bloomed. They are found at the edges and cracks of the rock outcroppings. Kevin had downloaded the Seek by iNaturalist app, which helped us identify some of the many wildflowers we were seeing. Wild carrot, Leadplant, Hoary Vervain, False Sunflower, Compass Plant, Grey-headed Coneflower, Wild Bergamot, Common Milkweed, and more!
There is a south entry to the park, which has trailheads, along with a visitor center, which was a former house of an author (closed due to COVID). This is another way to reach the quarry and Eagle Rock, which is the tallest point in the park. You can see both South Dakota and Iowa from the top of Eagle Rock.
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The town of Luverne is worth a quick tour through. We grabbed some of the locally-brewed Take 16 Brewing Company’s Country Mile Kolsch and Luverne Copper Lager. Drive the downtown main street and see some of the buildings constructed with the Sioux Quartzite from the Blue Mound. Stop by JJ’s Tasty Drive-In for a blast from the past and a rootbeer float as a reward for your prairie hiking.
While you are in the area, think about checking out Pipestone National Monument (just north of Blue Mounds) and the Jefferson Petroglyphs. We will be back in a month staying at a different state park to check out those sites. Stay tuned!
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