hook lake bog is a soft bog in a glacial pocket in dane cty. as the wdnr website explains, the lake is almost completely filled in at this point, with bog, meadow, and tamarack wood along with floating sedge mats slowly making the spot land again. other habitats surrounding.

my brother and i parked alongside the road and walked into the site b/t two houses. a little encouragement from a 6yo playing in his backyard and a turn into a small wood and we came upon hook lake. the description was right; there was open water around but lots of sedge mats, some big enough to look like the mainland, some small floating islands. we choose a couple islands close to shore and hopped along some tussocks. when we got on—after a misstep that landed my brother’s leg into the bogmud above the knee (no waders here…)—we found to our delight that it was a serious quaking bog. the ground rippled beneath our feet, and when the other person jumped the whole mat undulated with land-waves. i’d been on quaking mats before, but not such dramatically obvious ones. a real treat. a whole little world of moss, sedge, and cranberry, getting on toward dusk.

first id of wild cranberry!

a.

making on the mat

a quaking

sea of moss towers

b.

lovely burgundy

spiralled leaves

quiet on the lake