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Mormon Coulee to Chaseburg

Mormon Coulee to Chaseburg is 35.9 miles of point-to-point riding through La Crosse and Vernon Counties in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 47 minutes; allow 70 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 62 corners, 175° of turning per mile, 2,000 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-4Twisty · 1.73/mi
Distance
35.9 mi47 min riding
Corners
6253% sharp · Tight
Climbing
2,000 ft56 ft/mi · Relentless
Shape
Point-to-pointHalf morning
Roads
Backroads64% county & local
Traffic
2,700vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 45
Open this route in the app

About this road

Mormon Coulee is a major valley on the south side of La Crosse; the name records an early and temporary Mormon presence in the region. The route climbs from the coulee toward Chaseburg through steep, scenic country. Immediate access from La Crosse makes the experience convenient yet still authentic. High relief and continuous interest reward the effort of starting in the Mormon Coulee bottom and earning the ridge views. Ideal when a substantial Coulee sample is wanted without a long approach from a distant base, or as a sharp half-day within a La Crosse-centered itinerary. The combination of convenient access, meaningful elevation, and local historical naming makes the route both practical and engaging. Start in Mormon Coulee, climb to the ridge. The name is the first story; the views are the second.

How it rides

62 corners over 35.9 miles — 1.73 a mile, and 175° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 53% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,000 feet in total, 56 feet per mile, between 637 and 1,300 feet — 664 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 560 feet over 2.3 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.3%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 64% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 36% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 45, measured across 27% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 31% of the miles — the median is 2,700 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 0.0 with 19,600.

Where to stop

4 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 16 fuel, 5 food, 5 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 19.5 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