Central Minnesota has an odd and wonderful swimming spot: a chain of clear, deep lakes sitting inside abandoned granite pits. They're part of Quarry Park & Nature Preserve, a 683-acre county park about five miles southwest of St. Cloud — a town nicknamed Granite City for the stone industry that boomed here from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. Companies hauled the prized Saint Cloud Red Granite out of these pits and shipped it worldwide until the quarries were exhausted. Stearns County bought the land and reopened it as a preserve in 1998, and now the 20 quarry pits double as lakes for summer fun.
Two of them are dedicated swimming holes, each a short walk (half a mile or less) from the parking lot. Quarry #11 has a sandy beach if you want a gentler shore day, while Quarry #2 attracts jumpers willing to leap off 20-foot granite cliffs into the water. Both have a picnic shelter, and neither has lifeguards — the water is deep, so weaker swimmers often bring floatation. Worth knowing before you go: Quarry #2 has been temporarily closed because of possible blue algae, so check the Stearns County website for current water conditions.
The water activities go beyond swimming. Six quarries (numbers 1, 4, 7, 9, 13 and 18) are open to fishing and get stocked with trout each spring; a Minnesota fishing license is required, and several have shore piers. Certified scuba divers with a permit can descend into Quarries #1 and #13 to see what the flooded pits look like from below.
Prefer to stay dry? More than a dozen climbing routes, 20 to 30 feet tall and ranging from beginner to advanced, run up the granite walls of Quarry #17 (permit needed), with a separate bouldering area near Quarry #20. Hikers and bikers can pick between the 2.3-mile Quarry Park Outer Loop, which passes the swimming quarries and takes about an hour, and the longer 5.9-mile SNA Loop through the preserve's Scientific and Natural Area — home to red-shouldered hawks, deer and Minnesota's largest population of the rare tubercled rein orchid. Note that dogs and bikes are banned in the SNA. In winter, the trails convert for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
History fans get something too: interpretive exhibits on the granite era, headlined by the 85-foot Liberty Derrick, which once hoisted slabs weighing up to 20,000 pounds, plus a granite cutting saw and Red Granite pillars. The Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud adds more background.
For travellers, this is a genuinely unusual day out — swimming in water framed by cut granite walls is nothing like the state's regular lakes. It's ideal for outdoorsy families in summer, climbers looking for a low-key crag, or anyone road-tripping between the Twin Cities and Minnesota lake country. St. Cloud itself is about 90 minutes from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, making an easy add-on to any Minnesota itinerary.
