Just under a half-mile south of the north shore beach on Devil’s Lake State Park’s Tumbled Rocks trail, you’ll come upon the park’s popular diving rock, “Rock 8”.
Rock 8, which looks a bit like the front end of a whale from the water, can provide a diving platform ranging from 4-12 feet above the water depending on the lake level. To avoid injury on the rocks below, divers need to leap out and away from the shoreline as far as possible. When wet, the rock itself can get quite slippery, so diving from Rock 8 is by no means a “safe” activity and we do not advise it.
Why is it called Rock 8?
At one time a surveyor camp from the University of Wisconsin was located on the south-west corner of Devil’s Lake. At that time a variety of locations around the lake were numbered for training purposes. Rock 8, as you have probably guessed, had a big “8” painted on it.