Ask someone in Ladysmith where "the Blue Hills" are and you'll get pointed south, toward Bruce, with a vague wave of the hand. Ask what's actually there and the answers get fuzzier. Most people know it as a place to camp, or ride, or maybe hike, without realizing those three activities happen in different parts of the same county forest, governed by different rules, and that at least one of those rules is currently up for debate.
Here's the shape of it. The Blue Hills sit in the northwest corner of Rusk County, about 12 miles northwest of Bruce, where two county campgrounds, three named trails, and one genuinely rare geological feature share a patch of forest that rises roughly 600 feet above everything around it. If you've only ever driven past the Perch Lake Road turnoff, this is what you're missing.
Two Campgrounds, Two Different Weekends
Perch Lake Campground and Audie Lake Campground sit half a mile apart, both run by Rusk County, and they are built for opposite kinds of weekends.
Perch Lake has full hookups at every site, three outlets per pad running 20-amp, 30-amp, and 50-amp service, plus direct ATV trail access. It's the campground you pick if you're towing a camper and bringing the four-wheeler. Audie Lake, next door, prohibits ATVs entirely, and its sites share more modest 30-amp and 20-amp outlets. Audie is the more primitive of the pair. It's also the one with a playground.
| Perch Lake Campground | Audie Lake Campground | |
|---|---|---|
| Hookups | Individual 20/30/50-amp, water | Shared 20/30-amp per site |
| ATVs | Direct trail access, parking lot on site | Not permitted |
| Feel | Full-service, rider-friendly | More primitive, playground on site |
| Nearby water | Perch Lake (bass, northern, muskie) | Audie Flowage (same species) |
Both sit inside the Rusk County Forest, both offer bass, northern pike, and muskie fishing a short walk from the tent pad, and both use the same Hunter Walking Trail and old logging road network that surrounds the two lakes. The choice comes down to hookups, ATV access, and which campground setup suits your weekend.
The Trail Isn't One Trail
This is the part that trips people up. "Hiking the Blue Hills" actually means choosing between three separate routes that don't all connect the same way.
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail runs through the area in two pieces. The Southern Blue Hills Segment stretches nearly 28 miles from County Highway F at Yuker Road down to Old 14 Road, and it climbs harder than almost anything else in the county forest, close to 984 feet of elevation gain over its length. The Northern Blue Hills Segment picks up from South Bucks Lake Road and runs to the County F trail access point, with a gentler 846 feet of gain. No permit is required to day hike either segment, but if you want to camp overnight anywhere along the route, Rusk County requires a dispersed camping permit, which you get by calling the county at 715-532-2113 or applying online.
Then there's the Blue Hills Felsenmeer Trail, which isn't part of the Ice Age Trail line at all. It's its own 4.1-mile loop built around a genuine felsenmeer, a boulder field left over from a mountain range that predates the Rockies. Most of Wisconsin's hiking terrain is glacial moraine, rounded hills and kettle lakes. The Felsenmeer is exposed bedrock, worn but still standing, and it's the one thing in this stretch of forest you can't find twenty minutes down the road. The trail carries the highest visitor rating of anything in the Rusk County Forest system, which is a fairly quiet way of saying it's the one locals actually recommend to out-of-town guests.
None of this trail work happens on its own. The Blue Hills Trail Association, a volunteer nonprofit, partners with the county forest to maintain and certify these segments under the Ice Age Trail Alliance's broader network, the same arrangement that keeps trail sections open and marked across the state.
What's Changing Right Now
The county's forestry committee has two items on its books this year worth knowing before you plan a trip.
The first is good news for anyone without an ATV. As of the committee's January 2026 packet, crews were actively working on a new kayak launch and fishing pier at Perch Lake, alongside routine updates to the nature trail there. Once finished, it gives paddlers a formal put-in they haven't had, which widens what the campground offers beyond towing in a camper and riding trail.
The second is still in motion. That same meeting recorded public comment on scheduling a hearing about a proposed ATV/UTV loop trail near the Felsenmeer. Nothing has been finalized, and the county hasn't set a resolution as of this writing, but it's the kind of decision worth watching if the current hiking-only character of that trail matters to how you use it. If you have an opinion on it, the Rusk County Land and Forestry Committee is the body taking comment.
Timing a Fall Trip
If you're thinking about a weekend at Perch Lake before the season turns, the window is narrower than it looks. Electricity at the campground runs year round, but water service shuts off around the second week of October. That gives you roughly the next three to four weekends of full-service camping, which lines up almost exactly with when the hardwoods on those 984 feet of elevation gain start turning. After that, you can still camp, but you're hauling your own water in.
Audie Lake, being more primitive to start, doesn't carry the same seasonal cutoff to plan around, which is one more reason it tends to draw the people who'd rather not deal with hookups at all.
Why This Is Worth Knowing
None of this shows up on a highway sign. The Blue Hills read, from a distance, like one green blob on the map south of town. Up close it's a working piece of county infrastructure with two campgrounds built for different visitors, a trail network stitched together by a volunteer trail association, and an active local debate about how much motorized use belongs next to a boulder field older than the mountains most people compare it to.
That's the kind of texture that doesn't come up in a listing description, but it's exactly the kind of thing that makes Rusk County feel like a place worth knowing well, not just passing through. If you ever find yourself wondering what it takes to buy a cabin near a trailhead like this one, or what county forest access actually means for a piece of land you're considering, that's a conversation Hantke Homes has with buyers and sellers around here all the time. Schedule your free consultation whenever that question comes up.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
