Sylvan Hill Park Offers Winter Family Fun Without the Drive

It was the day after Christmas, and my dad was visiting us in Wausau, WI for the holiday. At 70, he's a pretty active guy, so it didn't surprise me when he asked if we had any good cross-country skiing nearby. Now, Wausau is pretty well known for the Nine Mile Recreation Area, which has some fantastic cross-country trails, but neither of us wanted to drive very far. So we packed up the skis and the kids and headed for Sylvan Hill Park.

Only 5 minutes from downtown Wausau, Sylvan Hill is designated as a Winter Sports Area by the Wausau Park System. It is best known for its awesome snow-tubing hill (more on that later), but it also sports over 4 kilometers of cross-country ski trails.

When we arrived, the parking lot was packed with cars and people. I thought the trail might be crowded, but as it turned out everyone else was there to snow tube. We didn't see a soul out on the trail- it was like skiing in our own private resort.

The Sylvan Hill trails as shown on the trailhead map consist of two longer (1+) km loops, the Sylvan Loop and the Forest Loop, a couple of shorter crossover loops, and another long (1 ½ km) loop that leaves the park proper and circumnavigates the adjoining American Legion Golf Course. In actuality, it seemed to us that the Forest Loop and the American Legion Loop somehow joined to make one longer loop around the entire complex.

This arrangement suited us just fine. The trail was short enough that my 9-year-old daughter and I made it back to the trail head without burning her out on skiing, yet long enough that a faster skier wouldn't end up feeling dizzy from whizzing around a short track too many times.

The terrain, too, was a happy medium. If I had to rate its difficulty I'd call it easy, but the rolling hills lend some interest to the course. There is one hairpin turn that I would call wicked if it were a little steeper, but fortunately for those of us who are less than expert skiers there is plenty of room to fudge the turn without smacking into any trees.