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Beaver Creek and the Caledonia Ridges

Beaver Creek and the Caledonia Ridges is 54.7 miles of loop riding through Houston County in Minnesota — Bluff Country, the Root River valley, the Mississippi bluffs and the ridge roads above them. Moving time is about 69 minutes; allow 100 with stops — a half day. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 78 corners, 116° of turning per mile, 2,737 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-3Spirited · 1.43/mi
Distance
54.7 mi69 min riding
Corners
7838% sharp · Sweeping
Climbing
2,737 ft50 ft/mi · Relentless
Shape
LoopHalf day
Roads
Backroads100% county & local
Traffic
598vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
60 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Beaver Creek and the ridges around Caledonia deliver some of the most sustained climbing in the Minnesota set. Caledonia, the Houston County seat, sits on the upland surrounded by deep valleys—a classic ridge-top town. Long ridge runs, steep side-hill drops, and tight valley bottoms create the textbook pattern of this country. Scandinavian settlers left churches, cemeteries, and place names that still mark the landscape around Caledonia and Beaver Creek. From a high ridge you can often see several parallel valleys at once—a visual signature of the unglaciated plateau. The climbing is continuous rather than brutal; services are available in Caledonia; the surrounding roads quickly become quiet. This loop is a full expression of Houston County’s dissected country—substantial elevation, layered views, and the feeling of riding the high ground above a network of hidden valleys.

How it rides

78 corners over 54.7 miles — 1.43 a mile, and 116° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 38% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as sweeping.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,737 feet in total, 50 feet per mile, between 691 and 1,336 feet — 645 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 387 feet over 3.3 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.5%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. Posted speeds run to 60 mph, typically 55, measured across 32% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 19% of the miles — the median is 598 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 0.0 with 5,860.

Where to stop

2 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 2 fuel, 6 food, 2 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 30 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.

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