Highbridge Hills - Wisconsin

[mashnut]

A great way to make discs easier to find in grassy rough is to mow paths into it at intervals. You can mark which path it landed near/on, and it's a whole lot easier to get close to the disc on a path then dive into the rough than to keep your bearings and keep track of where you thought you landed when pushing through that stuff for a while.

For those complaining about the accommodations, if you went to highbridge for a resort experience, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Recob25]

Went last year in august with a crew of 6 and were the only ones on property... Amazing! Goin again this year for blueberry, granite, woodland, and the bear...

Anyone know what's going on with Whitetail? Close to finished? dying to play it.

Chestnut is unreal when you tee off at midnight but I'm praying for more signage this year! Got lost a few times last year.

John is awesome and will go to great extremes to make sure you and your buddies have a good time.

 

[dmbrun2]

IN about a week I will be chucking discs into trees and throwing low putts...and enjoying every minute of it

 

[Dave242]

I was there this last Saturday, and I left Sunday. Conditions were extremely wet - standing water on soft mud on over 1/2 of each course. There was no way to play without having my shoes filled with water before completing just one course. Bear was the driest, but still wet. There was a huge downpour at noon on Saturday and it also rained on Sunday, but it was just as wet before that rain.

With those conditions, only about 1 course worth of holes were mowed.....and they were trying to do more mowing. It has obviously been a very challenging spring (48" of snow in April I believe and then over 7" of rain in May is what John told me). I would not expect it to dry out for a couple of weeks.....and so it will not be completely mowed at least until then.

Although the grass was high, I had no problems at all losing my discs in the grass since the grass is not very dense at all.

I am glad I was warned about the accommodations. I stayed in the bunk house with Dill as my host (groundskeeper). For $15/ night, it was a bargain! All I needed was a place to sleep.

Recob - I noticed almost no trash (bottles, wrappers etc) on the course (I think I picked up 3-4 things). Thanks for your efforts.

It was a very nice secluded get-away alone....while my family headed off for a couple weeks to start their summer.

 

[superberry]

Dave, it sucks that you only had two days of poor conditions to play the courses. As a blue player who has also enjoyed winter park, I really wanted to hear about your experiences at HHSC. Especially Blueberry and Bear, two of my absolute favorites - Blueberry for the entirety of it, and Bear for the beatdown.

 

[HeavyCritters]

Dave,

Thanks for the update. I'll be up there on an annual trip with some friends the weekend of the 28th. Hopefully, it will be a little more dried out by then.

I know the snow killed that region all spring (I grew up in nearby Washburn, WI) and they are still feeling the after effects of the melt off.

 

[Stardoggy]

HeavyCritters,

My buddy and I will also be up there the weekend of the 28th. We'll be camping, and will be making it up sometime on Friday. We're driving from the Sheboygan area, and plan on hitting Standing Rock and Yulga on the way up (or maybe just SR). Maybe we'll get a chance to throw with you guys!

Hoping for the dried out conditions (as it rains outside my window right now).

 

[Dave242]

Dave, it sucks that you only had two days of poor conditions to play the courses. As a blue player who has also enjoyed winter park, I really wanted to hear about your experiences at HHSC. Especially Blueberry and Bear, two of my absolute favorites - Blueberry for the entirety of it, and Bear for the beatdown.

I much prefer Bear over Blueberry.

I did not at all feel like Bear was a beat down. Strenuous and grueling, yes....but all the courses were. Overall, the fairways are pretty generous in width and there is little early trouble to get you off on the wrong foot on the multi-throw holes. If you could not find the fairway on your drive, the heavy rough/shule usually added a stroke....but you should get punished for a bad drive. .....And with the generous fairways, if you are in the shule you got there due to a bad throw.....not simply a mediocre throw.

Blueberry had way too many holes on the old ball golf holes for my taste......"prairie golf" is not my style. There are plenty of really good holes on this course, but the open holes really diluted the experience for me (ditto for Gold).

I still am working on digesting the courses and how I will rate them. It is very hard since due to threatening weather on Sunday I decided to get them all in on Saturday (which I did). That was not my original/ideal plan since I knew that it would be overwhelming to load that much into my brain so quickly.

On top of that, I need to back out the effects of the conditions (I always review assuming perfect conditions.....and I am very practiced at extrapolating poor weather and/or maintenance and/or summer foliage in the winter. I do this simply by replaying the course in my mind with everything fixed up....often with the assistance of the pictures on this site. This will be a challenge for Highbridge since the conditions were worse on a couple fronts that I normally encounter (wet and high grass).

 

[simplepmart]

It is to bad the OP had this type of experience at Highbridge. Our group consisted of 9 people and we went the last week of July in 2011. We stayed at the Honka for 4 nights and played 4 full days of golf. Honka was a minimalist experience but it was worth it IMO because of its convenience. Wake up, eat breakfast, play a round, come back eat lunch, play 2 more rounds, finish the evening with a bbq on the deck overlooking the beautiful mountains and sunset.
As far as course conditions, we purposely plan our annual trips the last week of July (wherever we go) so that we will be out of the rainy season and all the conditions that come with spring thaws and rains. We only experienced one wet area on our trip to Highbridge (gold course I believe) and I have a feeling it remains wet year around in this spot because it is in a very low area and seems like it is always shaded, so it probably has little chance to dry out.
John was INCREDIBLY hospitable with our crew and came by a few times each day to make sure everything was ok. In fact, the first evening we were there we realized the bbq grill was not working. John hopped in his truck and before you knew it he was back with a brand new bbq grill and we were able to cook out each evening. He also cleaned up the hot tub so we could enjoy that. He stocked cold gatorade every day, met us at the disc shack when we needed to replace a disc, and made the entire trip pleasant.
The courses were in excellent shape, some freshly mowed, others very recently mowed. We never experienced shaggy grass on any of the courses. Granite was my personal favorite, it felt like a truly rugged mountain disc golf experience (with a golf cart of course ) and I have no hesitation giving it a 5 disc rating. Blueberry would be my second favorite. The best way to explain it (for me) is beautiful, peaceful, and pleasant. I would give it a 4.75+ disc rating. Gold, well, it was very fun in some parts (long, beautiful), but it was too "ball golfy" for me. I would give it a personal rating of 4.5 discs, I got tired of just chucking the disc on some of the holes. The rest of the courses were in great shape and totally fun, and I would have no hesitation to play those again even though they were not as epic as granite.
I believe our group of guys will be traveling up there in the near future to take in another great experience at Highbridge, especially since the Bear course has been completed!
I just can't say enough about the complex and the experience we had:thmbup:

 

[HeavyCritters]

Granite was my personal favorite, it felt like a truly rugged mountain disc golf experience (with a golf cart of course ) and I have no hesitation giving it a 5 disc rating. Blueberry would be my second favorite. The best way to explain it (for me) is beautiful, peaceful, and pleasant. I would give it a 4.75+ disc rating. Gold, well, it was very fun in some parts (long, beautiful), but it was too "ball golfy" for me. I would give it a personal rating of 4.5 discs, I got tired of just chucking the disc on some of the holes. The rest of the courses were in great shape and totally fun, and I would have no hesitation to play those again even though they were not as epic as granite.
I believe our group of guys will be traveling up there in the near future to take in another great experience at Highbridge, especially since the Bear course has been completed!
I just can't say enough about the complex and the experience we had:thmbup:

I'd go Granite, Woodland Greens, then Blueberry.

Woodland Greens never seems to get any love. Those tight, wooded tunnel shots are a blast, IMO.

You guys are getting me excited for the end of the month!

:thmbup:

 

[mashnut]

For me, Blueberry topped the list with the most variety followed very closely by Gold and Granite. Unfortunately only a handful of holes on Bear were in when I played, I liked those a lot, I'd love to get back and see what's been done on that and on Whitetail. Woodland Greens is a very fun course, but just doesn't have the same challenge level and variety some of the others do, it didn't make me pull as many different discs and shots out of the bag. I certainly enjoyed having that kind of course mixed in up there though.

 

[UP Mountain Man]

Went last year in august with a crew of 6 and were the only ones on property... Amazing! Goin again this year for blueberry, granite, woodland, and the bear...

Anyone know what's going on with Whitetail? Close to finished? dying to play it.

Chestnut is unreal when you tee off at midnight but I'm praying for more signage this year! Got lost a few times last year.

John is awesome and will go to great extremes to make sure you and your buddies have a good time.

Whitetail has the 1st 5 holes in.

RE signage ...Were you talking specifically about Chestnut, or are you including other courses in this comment?

The Bear is my favorite course at Highbridge, in fact it's the best course I've played so far. It's getting plenty of play too, which is what it's going to take to beat it in sweetly.

I like each of the other courses too. I personally enjoy the mix of woods and ball golf holes. There are shots on every course that you won't run into everywhere, if anywhere haha.

 

[discgolfis4u]

Sorry to anyone who has not had a fantastic experience at Highbridge this spring. I know John was plowing snow off the courses in May just so his guests could play. He is mowing the fairways throughout the night tonight. He is truly the hardest worker I have ever met. He literally gets four hours of sleep and is happy and joyful to be able to do this work for everyone. If their spring has been anything like ours, we have been lucky to even get outside here in Minneapolis. It rains every day! We don't even have our pool open yet, which has never happened before at this time of the year. I also have only ridden my bike once. Although we can't control the weather, if we all do our part to keep the grounds clean, we should still be able to enjoy all that is there. I can't wait to go and experience the property in the next couple of weeks. It sounds like a magical place...perhaps the red and black granite in the hills has something to do with that? So thankful we have a place like this to go to where we all can feel a part of something special. John has been doing his best with this most challenging of springs in the Midwest.

 

[Recob25]

Whitetail has the 1st 5 holes in.

RE signage ...Were you talking specifically about Chestnut, or are you including other courses in this comment?

The Bear is my favorite course at Highbridge, in fact it's the best course I've played so far. It's getting plenty of play too, which is what it's going to take to beat it in sweetly.

I like each of the other courses too. I personally enjoy the mix of woods and ball golf holes. There are shots on every course that you won't run into everywhere, if anywhere haha.

Yo mountain men! Yes I was just referencing signage on chestnut... The map is not available on the website and the 22 holes are difficult to locate in the dark... No worries though cuz all other courses were clearly marked and it sounds like everyone is busting their tails trying to get the season ready.

My buddies and I battle all year in a running skins game and It's so awesome to settle it all in our championship round at Blueberry... The environment is unreal! Anyone know how many golf carts are available for the Bear, Granite, and Gold this year?

 

[smyith]

Granite Ridge is in the top 10???
A lil surprised, did it get a re-design since PW07?

 

[laramiecarlson]

FYI to anyone attending Highbridge this weekend, there will be a rave there.

 

[ChrisWoj]

How is the bunk house looking? I'm really curious. I spent a summer up there (2006). We put up the doors, windows, insulation, drywall, and painted. The front room was a big wide open space, filled with assorted junk, a kitchen table and appliances, a couch and a foosball table. I'll always fondly remember chilling out in that building - getting bored at 1am and painting all night, foosball games, Arrested Development off the hard drive... Good times.

 

[ru4por]

FYI to anyone attending Highbridge this weekend, there will be a rave there.

Boy, I would be irritated if I traveled there to play for a weekend and was subjected to all night dupstep and techno crap blasting. :doh:

 

[Dave242]

How is the bunk house looking? I'm really curious. I spent a summer up there (2006). We put up the doors, windows, insulation, drywall, and painted. The front room was a big wide open space, filled with assorted junk, a kitchen table and appliances, a couch and a foosball table. I'll always fondly remember chilling out in that building - getting bored at 1am and painting all night, foosball games, Arrested Development off the hard drive... Good times.

It is probably about the same. I stayed there for 2 nights 2 weekends ago. Old furniture - a couch I plunked down on had nothing under the pillows and I fell to the floor, the dresser in my room was missing a back leg and had to be leaned up against the wall (found that out when trying to plug my phone in - woops). Its got a little locker room funk smell going on....but not over-powering. Bathrooms are still 100' away up the hill and are about the same level of quality (spartan and functional).

Basically, it was fine for the $15 a night charged. Perfect for anyone with the right expectations - single guys on a budget. Much better than camping if you find the setup and tear-down an unnecessary hassle when all you want to do is play all day and a place to crash at night.

 

[mashnut]

I would agree Dave, it cost about what you pay at a decent campsite and was a fine place to crash. We were there a couple years ago and it poured, we planned on camping but paid for the bunkhouse instead to have a place to dry out. I didn't go up there with the expectations of anything but primitive camping so it was a great alternative for me.