Blind Hill Crest Hwy 113

This small parking lot on Hwy 113 offers access to Devil’s Lake State Park’s Uplands Trail and Sauk Point Trail, both part of the National Ice Age Trail system. Recently, the parking area hasn’t been getting plowed. This is dangerous!

The photo above shows the location from the southern approach and the opposite lane. This is because, from the other direction, you can’t see the cars until you’re “on top of them”. This is a blind crest. When the parking area isn’t plowed, trail users are parking along the edge of the road as you can see here. In fact, they are barely off the road.

It does not take much imagination to see a car coming over the blind crest and hitting an open door or worse, someone getting in or out of their car here. What could be worse, is if the timing is such that there is another car in the oncoming lane leaving a driver with the option of hitting a pedestrian or an on-coming car. This is NOT safe.

The bottom line is that roadside parking in this location is dangerous. Trail users shouldn’t park along the road here. At the same time, the whole issue could be alleviated by simply plowing out the parking lot as was done in the past.

Location