Candlelight pulls in the people

WAUPACA - Winter is usually a down time at Hartman Creek State Park. That wasn’t the case Feb. 22, as more than 1,000 people took advantage of mild weather and headed to the park for its annual winter candlelight ski/hike.
The Friends of Hartman Creek State Park, a group of volunteers that promotes and makes improvements to the 1,500 park seven miles west of Waupaca, has hosted the event for several years.
Fred Silloway, the organization’s president, spent much of his time at the event greeting cross-country skiers, snowshoers and hikers along Hartman Lake.
“I think it’s the serenity of the evening in the winter,” he said. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, even with 2,000 people. This park is huge. Not enough people come out in the winter to experience it. The park has things to offer people all four seasons.”
Silloway anticipated a big crowd to turn out.

“Our No. 1 concern at an event like this is always safety,” he said. “We have to make sure it’s a safe environment. We would cancel if there were high winds, frigid cold or ice. We have ideal conditions this year. It’s in the 20s, little breeze, blue sky. It couldn’t be any better.”
A daily pass or annual admission sticker is required to enter Hartman Creek and the state’s more than 60 other state parks.
“A state park pass at $28 is one of the best deals you can get,” said Silloway. “It’s the cheapest fun you’re going to be able to have.”
Several other state parks throughout Wisconsin hold similar events each winter.
“We find a lot of younger families with their kids,” said Silloway. “They want to get their kids out and be active and not sitting on the couch watching TV on a Saturday night or playing video games. We have a lot of retirees who come out to experience the park. We even have some people on dates who come out for a nice little activity. It’s an hour and a half or two hours of a little exercise and we finish with hot cocoa. Most of the people that attend are from Waupaca County, Portage County, Waushara and over in the Fox Valley.”
Volunteers prepared for the event by placing 600 candles in white bags along two miles of trails in the park.
“We have about 600 luminaries, which are basically church candles in a saddle made from a 2-by-4 inside of a white paper bag,” said Silloway. “It takes us about an hour and a half to set them up on the trails. We started at about three this afternoon. Plans to do this go back about five months. There are supplies that we need to acquire, reserving the date and all the self-promotion.
“We try to add something a little different every year just to keep it exciting and new for people,” he said. “We have snowshoes for rent offered by Adventure Outfitters. Last year, we went around Hartman Lake and this year, we’re up in the forest. We like to mix it up.”
Hartman Creek is one of two state parks in east-central Wisconsin. The other, High Cliff State Park on the east shore of Lake Winnebago, also holds a candlelight event each winter.
Silloway said the Friends group has hosted a winter event at the park for years.
“It’s a little gem that is away from other parks enough to make it an adventure, but not so far away that it’s a chore to get here,” he said. “We offer really good fishing on lakes and the beach, which is extremely popular. We have horseback riding trails, a campground and our single-track mountain bike trails are considered some of the finest in central Wisconsin.”
The campground draws visitors in the spring, summer and fall.
“Nowadays, make your reservations early, but there are always a couple of last-minute openings,” said Silloway. “One of the new improvements scheduled for the park for next year is the construction in the campground of a new shower building with modern restrooms to make it much more convenient for people.”
The ski/hike is a way to get the word out about the Friends group and the park itself.
Groups like the Friends of Hartman Creek are important to the parks they support, according to Silloway.
“They’re absolutely critical,” he said. “The state does not fund parks adequately anymore. They’re barely able to subside on the bare essentials to run the park. It doesn’t come close to offering any enhancements or niceties that the public has come to expect. Our mission in the Friends is to first of all, connect people to nature. To do that, we host events, make improvements and provide resources to park staff to make them more efficient considering how thin they are in the first place.”
“We don’t use candles because of the fire risk in the fall, but the bags that we use are decorated by grade-school kids,” Silloway said. “It’s fun to keep the kids engaged in the community. These events cost money to put on, but we also receive some donations from the public. We also receive some grants from the Waupaca Area Convention & Visitor Bureau, as well as the town of Farmington and Adventure Outfitters, that allow us to break even. That’s a pretty good day for us to be able to provide entertainment, exposure and an opportunity for over 1,800 people.”