White River Park - Southern Wisconsin

We packed the kids and their sleds in the car and spent an hour or so out at the White River County Park in Walworth County a couple of weeks ago.  The photo at the top is the hill that greets you as you walk down from the parking lot towards the river.  If you look closely at the top of the photo, you'll see the river winding around the bend.  If you were pretty streamlined and had a good push, you could *ALMOST* reach the river by sled from the top of the hill.  

This is the county's largest park and is located just 10 minutes or so away from Lake Geneva.

From the county's website:

After we hit the hill a few times with the sleds, we took the kids for a little snow hike down the trail that is adjacent to the White River.  We didn't get far, but we did see people doing it right - with snowshoes and cross country skis.

Back near the parking lot, there's a large barn - not sure if it is in service, but it looks like it was original the property.  Here's the barn from right in front of the parking lot/strip:

I went looking around the Web a little bit more to see if I could find more about the barn and sure enough...I turned up the Geneva Lake Conservancy - who has a page on the park which has tons of new information including the fact that this park is REALLY New.  It became an official park just back in 2014.    And, they also lead me to the info I was seeking:  this is a 'historic dairy barn'.  Aha!  Makes perfect sense being in Wisconsin and all, right?  

But, that page has few other photos and details including that since it was purchased, they put up two new footbridges over the river and are actively fundraising to build even more trails.  Go check out the whole thing here.

There are currently four trails (Prairie, White, Orange, Blue) that I'm certain we'll explore more - especially as the snow melts - because they're mostly under one mile loops, so they're perfect for our little family of hikers.