Mark Barna

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Getting above ground can change your perspective, and not just visually.

Northeastern Wisconsin offers several towers, including along Lake Winnebago, overlooking a county marsh and deep in the Kettle Moraine State Forest where a little stair-stepping can get adventurers in a different frame of mind.

And 40 to 80 feet closer to the sky.

Climbers look out upon a dimpled sheet of lake streaked by watercraft, scraps of islands amid a marsh’s filmy waters and miles of green treetops swaying rhythmically in the breeze. Visibility is about 25 miles on clear days.

When towering, the climb is as important as the summit. The journey equals arrival.

The physical exertion clears the mind. The stair-stepper is ready for and has earned the experience at the top.

Below are five towers in northeastern Wisconsin that could all be visited in a single day.

The Marsh Tower overlooks 13,000 acres of wetlands. The 80-foot wooden structure is within the 30-acre Broughton Sheboygan Marsh Park & Wildlife Area, which boasts campsites, picnic areas, a playground, a restaurant and watercraft rentals. The Sheboygan County tower has wide stairs and railings and four decks.

Opened Dec. 25, 2009, the structure is the highest among the towers visited.

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday year-round

Location: W7039 County Road, Elkhart Lake in the Broughton Sheboygan Mark Park & Wildlife Area.

Deep in the Kettle Moraine State Forest in Sheboygan County is the Parnell Tower.

The 60-foot wooden structure has three decks, the top offering a dizzying view of miles of treetops. Hills formed by glaciers are visible to the west, as is a shelf where two glaciers ground against each other during the last ice age. On clear days, a hazy sliver of Lake Michigan comes into view. Along with swaying treetops, travelers can see villages and a checkerboard of farm fields.

People have whittled their name into the tower's wood, especially at the top deck, leaving their mark in the same way that mountain climbers sign registries on a summit. The difference is that Kettle Moraine officials consider the Parnell carvings vandalism.

Circling the structure across hilly terrain is a 5-mile trail loop mostly shaded by a canopy of hardwoods and oaks.

Hours: Sunrise to sunset

Location: W7876 County Highway U, Plymouth in Kettle Moraine State Forest, Northern Unit. Near intersection of County Highway A and Kettle View Road on County U.

The Calumet Harbor Lighthouse was restored in 1992 as a skeletal steel observation tower and navigational aid for watercraft on Lake Winnebago. Two strobe lights flash at its top.

The 70-foot lighthouse in Fond du Lac County is on the southeast side of the lake. The open-air structure has three steel-grate decks and stairs. If a climber looks between his feet, it can be disconcerting, giving the feeling of floating. If you have vertigo, be careful on this tower.

On a recent Sunday, a steady stream of visitors included children, parents and grandparents.

Hours: Sunrise to sunset

Location: From Highway 151 in Pipe, turn west on County Highway W and travel one mile to Columbia County Park in Fond du Lac County

The symbol of Fond du Lac, this 40-foot lighthouse is perched in Lakeside Park at the southern end of Lake Winnebago.

Originally built in 1933 and restored in 1968 and 1993, the eight-sided lighthouse rests on a flagstone base and is of frame construction. The design is Cape Cod-style.

The lighthouse continues to serve as an observational aid for watercraft.

Inside, wooden stairs wind to the top. The staircase is narrow, so it's single file all the way up.

Recently wall text and historical photos were installed on the lighthouse's interior levels.

Hours: 8 a.m. to dusk mid-April to mid-October.

Location: Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac

A 40-foot, two-deck observation tower rises along northeast Lake Winnebago in High Cliff State Park in the town of Sherwood. The stair-stepper begins the journey in a manicured park surrounded by thick woods and ends up above the trees. Looking west, the view is of northern Lake Winnebago, villages, cities and farmland.

The Calumet County park of nearly 2,000 acres straddles the rock formation of the Niagara Escarpment, a geological formation arcing from Wisconsin to the New York-Canada border, shown most dramatically in the steep, soapy plunge of Niagara Falls.

The escarpment is sedimentary rock formed from an ancient sea. It weathers not by wearing down but by fracturing, continually creating sharp cuts to the rocks and boulders.

In the park, looping trails take hikers along the cliff, which, though it faces the lake, is not visible from the water because of overgrowth. Along the cliff are rocks and boulders chiseled into squares through the weathering process. The rocks and boulders look like broken stone fences and the foundations of a house or shed. Hikers can be forgiven for thinking they've come upon the remains of a town overtaken by nature. Imagine stumbling upon the mythical El Dorado, only in Wisconsin.

Throughout the park are smooth plains of gray escarpment, resembling pock-marked, weedy parking lots.

Another site worth seeing in the state park are the ruins of the Western Lime and Cement Co., where limestone from the escarpment was dumped into three rotund kilns burning at 2,200 degrees. After a 100-year run, the kilns were shut down in 1956.

On a recent Sunday, rabbits, squirrels, vultures, hawks and wild turkeys were spotted in the park. Joggers and bikers were on the trails and park roadways, children were laughing in a playground and stair-steppers were taking in the spectacular views from High Cliff Tower.

Hours: 6 a.m.-11 p.m.

Cost: $5 one-hour pass; $8 all-day pass.

Location: N7630 State Park Road, west of State 55 in town of Sherwood along northeast Lake Winnebago.

More info: 920-989-1106