The Driftless Region's Kickapoo Valley is a hilly paradise in western Wisconsin

The name of the Driftless Region has always seemed a misnomer to me.

Less implies lacking something. The last glacier to plow through Wisconsin didn't touch this western portion of the state, so it doesn’t have the glacial drift (sediment and large rocks) left behind in the rest of Wisconsin.  

But the Driftless is not less than in any way. In a state full of remarkable places, this area is its own kind of special paradise. 

The Ocooch Mountains are its centerpiece. The forested hills, ridges and bluffs plunge into foggy valleys, with two-lane roads winding up, down and around and giving new meaning to the term "tree-tunnel" in the summer and fall.

Then there are the rivers. The Kickapoo, whose serpentine 126-mile length carries it just 65 linear miles into the Wisconsin River. The state’s namesake river cuts through the area’s middle on its journey to the Mississippi, where the hills rise up into 500-foot bluffs.  

All of that with few humans to screw it up. Viroqua, the Vernon County seat, has a population of under 5,000. On the backroads outside of town you’re more likely to pass an Amish buggy than another car.  

The crinkle-cut land is its own partial protection against the destructive hand of man, and those who live there are smart enough to mostly leave well enough alone. 

“We were lucky to get out of the way of awesomeness,” said “Cowboy Joe” Rogan-Nordstrom, a Milwaukee native who for the last 14 years has run the Kickapoo Valley Ranch with his partner “Cowboy David” Rogan-Nordstrom, who hails from the area.

“There’s no place that has this,” he said as he gestured to the hills circling the ranch north of La Farge.

“When you go out West, and you spend time in big sky, nature, quiet nothingness, which is everythingness … you have this thing that you just can’t get it out of you,” Rogan-Nordstrom said. “After having spent a long time trying to find opportunities like are out there here in the Midwest, it’s impossible. And if it’s guest-ranchy, authentic horseback riding and good down-home places, we’re like maybe we’re supposed to create it.” 

Create it they did. The ranch is a sanctuary in an already majestic and secluded place. And ranch is no misnomer. While they don’t offer horseback rides anymore (there are other guide services in the area), horses and llamas in pens greet visitors upon arrival. Individual cabins with names such as Wild Bill's Hideout and Slick's Joint feature tasteful Western elements including giant rocking chairs on porches overlooking the hills, comfortable quilts and cowboy portraits above the beds. 

The cowboy owners make stays more memorable with such touches as large chocolate-chip-and-walnut cookies that can also be purchased onsite or at their bakery, Cowboy David's Bake Shoppe in Viroqua.  

The tabby cat that greeted me at my cabin, the appropriately named Miss Kitty’s Rendezvous, was almost too perfect. If this were a movie script, a director would scribble too unrealistic. 

The Hollywood-level perfection continued the next morning as I sipped coffee in one of the rockers, horses grazing in the wildflower-tinged hill below me and wisps of fog swirling around the hills above.  

I would have been more than content spending the entire day in that spot, but the hills beckoned.  

A nature reserve that almost wasn't 

The ranch sits on the edge of the 8,600-acre Kickapoo Valley Reserve, a natural escape for every kind of outdoor lover. At the center is the twisting Kickapoo River, a favorite for canoeing and fishing. Spreading out from the river is an extensive trail network and backcountry campsites for hikers, bikers and horseback riders.  

If things had gone a little differently 50 years ago, however, this area might look more like the Dells than a quiet wilderness. 

RELATED:The Dells and Baraboo offer an outdoor getaway for every kind of traveler

Beginning in the 1930s, residents began looking for ways to control the Kickapoo’s devastating floods, including one in 1951 that left 10 people dead.  

In 1962, Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dam at La Farge that would create a 1,780-acre lake. Dam supporters played up the recreational and tourism potential of the new reservoir. 

Others weren’t keen on altering the natural landscape so drastically. Local groups including the John Muir Chapter of the Wisconsin Sierra Club began fighting against the dam, known as the La Farge Lake Project.  

Ground was broken in 1971 and the government bought up 140 farms — some taken through eminent domain — along the river. Highway 131 was moved, a control tower started going up and work began on building the earthen dam. 

But when a more intense environmental impact survey revealed the lake’s water quality would be abysmal and costs began soaring, support for the project began to erode. In 1975 after $18 million was spent, work was stopped. 

The area remained stuck in that special brand of government amber for two decades, until Congress authorized return of the land to Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk nation, its original human inhabitants, to be turned into the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. 

Traces of its dammed past remain, in the partially constructed concrete tower, and the new Highway 131 that allowed for its predecessor to become a prime paved hiking and biking route. There are also the families who had to sell their land, remembered in stones at the visitor center north of La Farge. 

The Kickapoo is still prone to flooding, a fact that was top of mind when I canoed it during an afternoon rainstorm with a friend a few years ago.  

We escaped that time with just some soaked clothes, but with rain in the forecast on my latest visit the memory of that wet afternoon pushed me to the reserve's hiking trails. No need to tempt fate on the river twice. 

I connected trails around the visitor center for a comprehensive taste of the reserve, including a walk along the paved Old Highway 131 Trail, across Bridge 18, a lovely covered lattice structure, and to a lookout point near the old dam tower.  

The next day I'd sneak in a hike on the Black Hawk Rock Trail, but that afternoon lightning and thunder looming to the west chased me back to my porch sanctuary.

For someone who's used to cramming in as many activities in a day as possible, I was surprisingly at peace with being forced to slow down for once.  

The night before, I had watched the documentary "The Kickapoo Valley Reserve: From Here to There," a copy of which was in my cabin. The film begins with the quote, “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”  

It comes from "Pooh’s Little Instruction Book," but it's fitting for the river and the region.  

There's no hurrying here. The hills prevent that. In the Driftless Region, sometimes it's best to sit back in a rocking chair and watch nature do its thing. 

More information: The Kickapoo Valley Ranch has cabins with king and queen beds and kitchens or kitchenettes. Rates start at $169. Call (608) 625-6222 or see kvranch.com. 

RELATED:Things to do in the Driftless Region

Getting there: The Kickapoo Valley Ranch is at E11761 County Road P, La Farge, about 175 miles west of Milwaukee.