Minnesota 5-year-old finishes quest to visit 67 waterfalls

Colleen and Wynn Radke at Hidden Falls.
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/KARE 11)

When Wynn Radke's mom, Colleen, told her to pick an outdoor activity they could do together during quarantine, the 5-year-old came up with an ambitious plan to visit 67 waterfalls.

"I told her we weren't going to sit around and watch YouTube all summer," Colleen Radke told KARE 11. When asked how she came up with the idea to see 67 waterfalls, Wynn said simply, "Just thought of it in my brain."

The Radkes live in Minneapolis, and over the course of five months, they traveled across Minnesota and into western Wisconsin to visit waterfalls, starting at Fairy Falls in March and ending at Winnewissa Falls in August. While some waterfalls were visible from roads, other times Wynn and Colleen had to hike several miles in order to see the cascading water.

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Colleen recently went back to work after being furloughed, and she's grateful for the five months she spent chasing waterfalls with Wynn, especially since it came as she was finalizing a stressful divorce. "It was just a really fun time for the two of us to bond and grow and heal together," she said. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.