A longtime Milwaukee resident, Thad W. Jelinske maintained a successful corporate law practice for almost three decades. With a passion for water sports and outdoor activities, Thad W. Jelinske enjoys hiking excursions across Wisconsin in his free time. One of the state’s remarkable offerings is the nearly 1,200 mile Ice Age Trail, which takes in a glacial border that existed as late as 15,000 years ago and carved out thousands of ridges and valleys.
The most unique example of glacial activity on the trail is Kettle Moraine, which spans 120 miles of upland and irregular ridges that shelter pot-shaped kettles. These depressions were formed as a buried mixture of ice, gravel, and sand, arranged as massive detached blocks, melted after other ice receded. As the compacted ice finally melted, other materials in the mixture collapsed and left crater-like depressions as deep as 100 feet in their wake.
Vast stretches of this topography are preserved within Kettle Moraine State Forest. This geologically distinct region was at the heart of the efforts of attorney, mountaineer, and naturalist Raymond Zillmer to create a linear park spanning Wisconsin from the 1950s to 1970s.
