The Baraboo Range - Wisconsin Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

From the Baraboo Range Preservation Association website:

The Baraboo Range is a unique example of an exhumed mountain range which is composed of Precambrian Quartzite. The range covers 144,000 acres in Sauk and Columbia Counties. It stands as high as 800 feet above the Wisconsin River and is one of the most ancient rock outcrops in North America.

The Baraboo Range includes 55,000 acres of forest. This is the largest tract of mostly unfragmented deciduous forest remaining in the upper Midwest. The differences in elevation, exposure, and soils of the Baraboo Hills creates a variety of ecological habitats including high, dry rock strata where white pine predominates; rocky cliffs covered with lichens and mosses; cool steep valleys and ravines of hemlock; dry and wet prairie, and marshes.

At least 28 different natural communities have been identified. This ecoregion is home to over 1,800 species of plants and animals, including135 species of breed birds. Of these plant and animal species 77 of them are rare or imperiled in the state and 23 are on the state or federal lists of threatened or endangered species.