FREE FREE FREE!!!! Yes you read that right FREE!!! I’m certainly not made of money and always enjoy a good free campsite especially when its next to a WATERFALL!!! Now with being free obviously means there are NO amenities like water, electricity, showers or flush toilets in other words rustic. You pack in your garbage and YOU take it all out. They do however provide one porta-potty by the small shelter/picnic area at the entrance of campground also a picnic table and fire ring at each campsite. In my eyes that’s all you really need.

We discovered this County Park on our Wisconsin Road Trip this past summer. Located near Gurney WI, that is northwoods way up in Iron County next to the Potato River, off Highway 169 on Falls Rd. We came in from the Bayfield way that night and it was dark by time we got to that area. I’ll be honest I was a little sketched out at rolling into camp at night especially when Falls Road was pretty creepy. Its a long gravel road that follows nothing but farm fields, wood lines and some peoples houses in between.

At night in unfamiliar territory one can get a bit paranoid. Did not help that we were awaken by someone coming in to camp at 2 am not knowing if it was some drunken idiot or someone just coming in late like we did, although ours was only 930-10pm and we were the only ones there. Need less to say we did not sleep so well after that. When we woke up in the morning and made the small circle around we realized it was actually a  pretty safe and popular spot.  When we finally got packed up and ready to hike there was already a handful of cars there and this was during the week.

Campsites – There are only 5 campsites in a one small loop campground. Free of charge and you can camp up to 14 days in one spot.

Hiking-  2 trails here that lead to gorgeous Waterfall views, upper and lower falls. Upper falls trail starts out as a narrow path.

Leading to a whole bunch of these lovely stairs

Eventually you’ll pop out of the wood line seeing the waterfall.

Then you work your way down to the ledge and test your adventurous side with leaning over and checking out the gorgeous view of  two falls that you can see.

 

You can go even further and work you way down to the river side and practice your skill at rock skipping. Ill be honest Jason has the upper hand on this one. You wont hear me admit that very much and with my luck he might not even read this………:)

And you might as well just build some Carins!

Make sure you take all the photos you can then work your way back up the hill, across the parking lot and on to Lower Falls Trail. This trail is also full of plenty stairs so get prepared.

An ATV trail follows along some of this trail to. They were recently just working on the stairs and viewpoint on this trail. The viewpoint once at the bottom can be a bit disappointing being there is a tree in the way of getting any real good pictures.

There you have it a free campsite in the northwoods of Wisconsin with hiking and waterfalls included. You seriously can’t get any better than that. Save money and make it your basecamp to exploring the area attractions including Copper Falls State Park which houses some seriously beautiful hiking and waterfalls!!

Thank you all for your interest. Hope you have enjoyed this and if your ever in the Iron County area check it out.

Remember to follow Wandering Nirvana on Facebook and YouTube!! Video of us exploring these falls coming soon!