Popular show shines spotlight on city while showcasing Ice Age Trail
Whitewater and the Ice Age National Scenic Trail will take center stage on Discover Wisconsin with the premiere of its “Connecting Communities” episode on April 20-21.
In the segment, host Emmy Fink explores the 12,000-year-old natural wonder while taking viewers through Whitewater, Baraboo, Verona and Janesville.
The show is the third of four episodes focusing on the trail and will reach more than 250,000 viewers across the upper Great Lakes region, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Northern Illinois and Upper Michigan.
“By partnering with Discover Wisconsin, we’ve been able to show the beautiful Ice Age National Scenic Trail to viewers across the Midwest – an audience we hope will come visit the trail and the communities it connects,” said Mike Wollmer, Executive Director of the Ice Age Trail Alliance. “We also hope people understand the amount of work and volunteer hours it takes to complete the trail and keep it maintained.”
Much of Wisconsin was covered by a massive glacier during the Ice Age and some of the best evidence is found in Wisconsin’s lakes, river valleys, rolling hills and ridges. The Ice Age National Scenic Trail was established in 1980 and stretches across nearly 1,200 miles.
Fink begins her journey in Baraboo, where the host makes a stop at the town’s renowned Circus World Museum. She then travels to Verona and introduces viewers to Dave Lonsdorf, who discusses the history of the Ice Age Trail and the numerous volunteers it takes to maintain it every year.
Next, Discover Wisconsin heads to the southernmost segment of the trail in Janesville to tour the city’s popular Botanical Gardens.
The episode concludes in Whitewater, where Fink meets another volunteer, Whitewater’s Gary Klatt, a UW-Whitewater professor who has dedicated more than 3,000 hours to the trail and was honored with a Presidential Award.
The show also dedicates time to the thriving Whitewater downtown business district, the local Arts Alliance, the Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest, and Sotherland Custom Bicycles.
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail in Janesville sprawls 10 miles along the Rock River and threads its way through the city along a creek and green space. The Janesville segment is considered an easier hike as it features few significant changes in elevation. The trail starts at Riverside Street heading south across the Rock River and takes approximately four hours to hike from beginning to end.
“For families in search of a healthful retreat with beautiful scenery, this is it,” said Chad Diedrick, managing producer for Discover Wisconsin. “A 1,200-mile footpath — entirely within Wisconsin —provides amateur and experienced hikers alike access to some of the state’s most serene natural areas along with great communities to stop and visit along the way.”
See the show
As the nation’s longest running tourism program, Discover Wisconsin can be seen statewide on Fox Sports North (FSN) Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. For more information and other episodes or the broadcast schedule in other areas, visit www.discoverwisconsin.com.
Protecting the gift of the glaciers
The IATA is a volunteer- and member-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to create, support and protect a thousand-mile footpath tracing Ice Age formations across Wisconsin — the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.
Ice Age Trail Alliance staff and volunteers work cooperatively with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, National Park Service, local governments, businesses and private landowners to shape the Ice Age Trail into one of the premier hiking trails in the U.S.
The Ice Age Trail footpath runs from Door County to St. Croix Falls.
The closest portion of the Ice Age Trail is the Whitewater Lake segment with an access point at the Highway 12 outpost, four miles east of Whitewater.
This part of the trail runs along the southern segment of the Kettle Moraine State Forest, just north of Whitewater Lake.
For more information, visit www.iceagetrail.org.
