Grant Park's Seven Bridges Trail

Milwaukee's south side. A creek has spent millennia cutting a gorge through glacial clay and dolomite, and the result feels more Pacific Northwest than Great Lakes. Seven rustic wooden bridges cross the creek as the trail winds downhill toward the lake. 2.5 miles, about 120 feet of elevation change.

Stone steps descend from the parking lot on Lake Drive into the canopy. Within thirty seconds the city is gone. Ravine walls rise on both sides, covered in ferns and moss. The air drops five degrees and picks up that green mineral smell of water on stone. In early October the ravine becomes a color chart — sugar maples orange, basswoods yellow, oaks holding dark green like stubborn elders refusing to admit the season.

At the mouth the trail opens to a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. The day I went, the water was pewter and a freighter inched across the horizon with the urgency of a Sunday afternoon. No fee. Open dawn to dusk. Come in fall. And yes, everyone counts the bridges.