North Country Trail Section

The North Country National Scenic Trail passes through Copper Falls State Park en route across Wisconsin's Northwoods, and its section here traverses old-growth northern hardwood forest that escaped the logging era due to the terrain's roughness and relative inaccessibility. Beginning at the park's northeast trailhead the path follows the broad ridgeline between the Bad River and Tyler Forks drainages through a forest dominated by massive sugar maple and yellow birch, trees whose diameter at breast height often exceeds two feet and whose age is estimated at 150 to 200 years. The forest floor here is among the richest in northern Wisconsin, carpeted with wild leek in May when the leaves have not yet fully emerged, then transitioning to a diverse summer flora of trout lily, bloodroot, jack-in-the-pulpit, and blue cohosh. The trail surface is well-maintained by North Country Trail Association volunteers and follows the characteristic blue diamond blaze system. Several small clearings along the ridge were created by wind disturbance events in past decades and now support dense regeneration of striped maple and beaked hazelnut that shelters breeding warblers including the mourning and Canada warblers in spring. At the two-mile mark the trail descends to cross a small tributary stream on a log bridge before climbing back to the ridge. The forest's undisturbed character makes this the best wildlife-watching trail in the park.