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Old 12-06-2014, 07:53 PM
 
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I love living among many trees and getting away into the woods for hiking and camping. I'm contemplating a move to Madison, but want to make sure it's a fairly forested area with a good amount of woods/trees.

Is the Madison area forested, or is it more farmland/prairie?
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Old 12-06-2014, 08:21 PM
 
Location: Boilermaker Territory
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Green Guy View Post
I love living among many trees and getting away into the woods for hiking and camping. I'm contemplating a move to Madison, but want to make sure it's a fairly forested area with a good amount of woods/trees.

Is the Madison area forested, or is it more farmland/prairie?
If you look on Google Maps you will find the more heavily wooded areas to be north and west of Madison closer to the Driftless region or within it. Once you go west to about Cross Plains or north to Baraboo it becomes more wooded overall. Madison area is a mixture of woods, farmland, lakes, and prairie.
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Old 12-06-2014, 08:23 PM
 
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There is more woods and hills and hiking/camping opportunities to the west and north of Madison. The south and east are a little more farms/prairie.

Madison itself is big enough, where being right in the city, you don't have woods, other than the trees that are planted.
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Old 12-06-2014, 09:18 PM
 
Location: Chisago Lakes, Minnesota
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Forest? Not exactly. Trees? More than plenty.
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Old 12-06-2014, 10:01 PM
 
Location: Madison, WI
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It's a city of 230,000 people with a metro area of 250,000 people. We have the Arboretum, but other than that, no forests.
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Old 12-07-2014, 05:58 AM
 
Location: WI
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OP, after moving back here from 6 yrs in SC, i'd say the closest to the Carolinas (since you are in NC) for comparisons on wooded areas would be the "northwoods" of WI.
As others have mentioned except for the Arboretum here one would likely head a little north/west for more outdoor and hiking options in the woods. Google Devils Lake and Governer Dodge state parks as examples.

On a side track to your comparison poll since we are in the Madison forum, here there are 4 distinct seasons. Summer in Madison can be hot and humid but nowhere near the length it is in the south. Winter in the south is more like fall in WI. Bugs can be bad here into fall but the hard frost keeps them from being a winter nuisance. And while the chain of lakes in Madison offer multiple recreational options they do ice over in winter so boating here truly is seasonal. Swimming will be up to what that summer is like, as runoff is an issue some years the algae can really take over on the water (again check out Devils Lake lol for more swimming options).
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Old 12-07-2014, 07:27 PM
 
Location: Madison, WI
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Sorry, I was off a little on my numbers. 243,000 people in Madison proper.

Then there are the suburbs which share a border or in some cases are surrounded by Madison on all 4 sides.
Monona is 10K,
Fitchburg about 30K
Maple Bluff 1K
Shorewood 13K
Middleton 18K

So around 315K in what for all intents and purposes is "Madison."
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Old 12-07-2014, 08:27 PM
 
Location: Wisconsin
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Originally Posted by Green Guy View Post
Is the Madison area forested, or is it more farmland/prairie?
Definitely farmland/prairie except for some small patches of parks.
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Old 12-08-2014, 01:24 PM
 
Location: Wisconsin
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No. It is not forested, but there are lovely woods for hiking within the city and in the nearby communities. Others have mentioned the Arboretum, which is within the city limits. Other wooded hikes would include:
Governor Nelson in Waunakee, Lake Kegonsa State Park in Stoughton, Cam Rock in Cambridge, Blue Mounds State Park in Blue Mounds, Devil's Lake in Baraboo, New Glarus Woods in New Glarus. Parts of the Ice Age trail are also wooded, and make nice hikes. All are a 45-50 minute or less drive from Madison. Since we are an area that was originally prairies and Oak Savannahs, most of these parks include wooded and prairie trails, which is nice in our climate. The woods are perfect for a summertime hike, and the prairie hikes are nice in the spring and fall when you want to soak up every bit of warmth from the sun that you can. In the winter, they each have their own beauty.
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Old 12-09-2014, 06:45 PM
 
Location: Mequon, WI
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I'll add this, Madison to me the city part has a ton of trees on busy streets, side streets and a lot of green space and parks. Whenever I go to Madison I am amazed on how many trees there are in the city. To me it's a noticeable difference when I go there and with the trees at nighttime it seems a lot darker because of it. It's not Atlanta forested but it seems like to me even on side streets there are a ton of trees, it seems to be a very noticeable difference than say Milwaukee, although I sometimes think Milwaukee cut down a lot of it's trees on purpose because you have a lot of streets with no trees whatsoever. I would say Madison has more trees in the city part than most cities. So in those terms it's forested but not like Northwoods forested. I hope I explained this clearly.
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