Great River Bluffs State Park
Date Hiked: October 13th, 2025
Trail Hiked: Great River Bluffs Trail, King's Bluff Loop, Sugar Loaf to Garvin Heights Trail
Distance Hiked: 9.9 miles
Elevation Gain: 1368 ft.
Duration: 4:03:20
The last time I visited this park, the allegedly glorious views from the eponymous bluffs were nothing more than a Pyramidhead haven of the void, which to be fair was plenty appropriate for how I was doing at that time in my life. Imagine my relative delight when I headed back to the Winona area on the revisiting quest and the visibility was quite the opposite!
One really can't go wrong on the crescent of this state. While there are plenty of gems throughout the rest of the state, some of which I've ranked pretty high, the North Shore and the bluffs along the river road are easily the most consistently good. So much so that in addition to hiking the longest trail in this state park (which, among long trails in Minnesota State Parks, isn't that long), I also decided to stop on down in Winona proper to climb on up to Sugar Loaf, head over toward Garvin Heights, and make a blufftastic day out of it.
The fall of 2025 was extremely kind toward fools like me, even though I'm someone who will hike in anything above -30. The autumn leaves are lovely, though being from the northeast it's hard to compare to New England, which is likely why the Gilmore Girls binge comes around that time with the season. But, the weather stayed pretty consistently mild until the middle of December for the most part, and as the bugs, ticks, and bears started going away along with the throngs of tourists, I was lucky enough to see state parks like this one without a scarf over my face, thus causing my breath to freeze on my sunglasses. What more could one ask for?
I noted before, but this park is a bit of a pain to get to, including trekking over some roads that would make even the fine citizens of Flint give some side-eye. For what it is, it's beautiful and a nice way to spend a clear autumn afternoon, but given how much wondrous nature and Appalachian-esque terrain is available, it leaves a little to be desired. Maybe I was spoiled by growing up in the aforementioned mountains or spending time on the Superior Hiking Trail close to this time, but I felt like it could be so much more than it is. Great River Bluffs, to me, inspires thoughts of steep climbs and difficulty-pushing hikes, but most of the trails there are already on top of the bluffs. Which is fine, I'm not knocking the access to glorious aerial views, but if I'm gonna travel several hours to hike on some bluffs, I want some sick elevation gain out of it. Thus, I also hiked another trail that starts from the bottom and allows for some leaftastic pushes up the sides of these ridges.
Great River Bluffs State Park is beautiful and remote, and I'm in no way knocking going to visit or spending time exploring its trails. But, it could be even better.
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