ScenicCurves

Home / Routes / Wisconsin / Great River Road: La Crosse to Prairie du Chien

Great River Road: La Crosse to Prairie du Chien

Great River Road: La Crosse to Prairie du Chien is 62.6 miles of point-to-point riding through La Crosse, Vernon and Crawford Counties in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 76 minutes; allow 110 with stops — a half day. It is scored CS-1, Cruiser: 39 corners, 86° of turning per mile, 2,218 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-1Cruiser · 0.62/mi
Distance
62.6 mi76 min riding
Corners
3946% sharp · Tight
Climbing
2,218 ft36 ft/mi · Rolling
Shape
Point-to-pointHalf day
Roads
Highway miles11% county & local
Traffic
2,800vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

This major segment of the Wisconsin Great River Road—an All-American Road—runs from La Crosse to Prairie du Chien with continuous Mississippi River scenery, historic river towns, and the high bluffs that define the Coulee Region’s western edge. Prairie du Chien is Wisconsin’s second-oldest European settlement, home to Villa Louis and the site of Fort Crawford. The road follows a corridor used for centuries by Indigenous peoples, voyageurs, and steamboats. Bluff overlooks and the historic sites in Prairie du Chien turn a scenic ride into a journey through layered time. This is a ride more about sustained river presence and historical density than pure technical geometry; the scenery and the towns do the heavy lifting. An essential piece of any itinerary that aims to experience the Mississippi edge of the Coulee Region from La Crosse to Prairie du Chien. Pair it with inland ridge-and-valley loops that climb away from the water and return. The river stays with you the whole way.

How it rides

39 corners over 62.6 miles — 0.62 a mile, and 86° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-1, Cruiser on the five-point curviness scale. 46% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,218 feet in total, 36 feet per mile, between 614 and 1,195 feet — 581 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 527 feet over 3.0 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.8%. By Driftless standards that is rolling.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 11% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 89% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 88% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 33% of the miles — the median is 2,800 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 2.7 with 24,700.

Where to stop

7 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 16 fuel, 10 food, 7 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 51.2 miles. Worth knowing before you set off if your tank is small.

Listed alphabetically, and chosen by us rather than rated by anybody. The order you reach them, and the mile each one sits at, are in the app.

Worth knowing

Turn-by-turn directions and the spoken guidance are in the app. Every figure on this page is measured from the route itself — corner counts and gradients from the road geometry, elevation from the national elevation dataset, traffic from the state transport departments where counts exist.

Nearby roads