Photo essay: Two First Day Hikes on New Year’s Day 2025!
January 4, 2025 | Topics: Events
By Eddee Daniel
We were there at dawn. The sun did not rise. At least not that we could tell … due to a deep overcast sky. I heard no complaints, however.
A small band of intrepid hikers had assembled in the Education Center at Havenwoods State Forest to participate in the first First Day Hike on New Year’s Day 2025. We left the building while it was still fairly dark, well before the sun was scheduled to rise. We hiked a short loop through a woodland, past a wetland, and across a grassland. At about the halfway point, next to the wetland, we paused to rest and recognize the rising of the sun, even though we couldn’t see it.
First Day Hikes in Wisconsin State Parks have become very popular events. (Last year I went to Bong State Recreation Area, where an estimated 300 people participated in multiple hikes.) Dawn, however, is apparently not the time most choose to go out. We had a total of precisely fifteen at Havenwoods, including two DNR guides. But since our dawn hike was over before breakfast, it meant that I had time to do a second First Day Hike. (There were several nearby to choose from.) The contrast couldn’t have been greater!
I chose Pike Lake, which was scheduled to start at noon. Due to a glitch in my internal software, I arrived late. (I somehow imagined that the 12:00 start time was really 1:00.) By the time I got there the vast beach parking lot was completely full. I’ve never seen it so full, even on hot, sunny summer days. I waited for a car to pull out, which freed a space for me to park.
Being late meant I missed the mob scene at the start of the hike. I stopped at the amphitheater where the participants had assembled before the start of the hike. Elias Wilson, one of the DNR staff stationed there told me that they had been counted. The two-mile loop had 120 hikers, the 3-mile loop had 101 hikers, and a short accessible loop had nine. However, many people (like me) had been arriving all along, which means the total was much higher, probably close to 300.
Being late, I opted to hike the route backwards in order to see as many people as possible and get photos of the action. This meant that I did get to see plenty of people. But it also meant that by the time they reached me they were strung out along the trail with large gaps between groups. I managed to get some nice shots, as you can see, but without the dramatic crowd that was present at the beginning. (Wilson graciously shared the group portrait he shot, which you see above.)
This year the First Day Hikes took on special significance. 2025 is the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Wisconsin State Park System. Havenwoods and Pike Lake are just two of the fifty state parks, forty-four state trails, fifteen state forests, nine state recreation areas and eight river and resources areas that now make up the system. Following the First Day kickoff, the DNR will be holding events throughout the year to commemorate the anniversary. I hope to attend a few more of them myself.
Photo essay: Havenwoods State Forest
Photo essay: Kettle Moraine State Forest – Pike Lake Unit
For more information about the two parks in this story—as well as more of my photos in other seasons—go to Havenwoods State Forest and Kettle Moraine State Forest – Pike Lake Unit.
Related stories:
The first day of 2024 brings multitudes out to the parks!
New Year’s Day at Lapham Peak (2020)
The featured photo at the top is of the First Day Hike at Havenwoods State Forest. All photos by Eddee Daniel except as noted. Eddee Daniel is a board member of Preserve Our Parks.