Wazee Beach is the sand swimming beach on the southeast corner of Wazee Lake, inside the Wazee Lake Recreation Area, a 1,300-acre park run by the Jackson County Forestry and Parks Department east of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The lake fills the pit of the old Jackson County Iron Mine, a taconite quarry that operated from the early 1960s until April 1983. Once the pumps that kept the pit dry were pulled, groundwater filled it, and the county now calls the 146-acre result the clearest and deepest inland lake in the state, with a maximum depth of 355 feet.

The park entrance is at N6302 Brockway Road, Black River Falls, roughly 7 miles east of downtown in a straight line (most visitors put it at about a 10-minute drive). A paved lot sits right behind the beach, so the walk to the sand is short. Flush toilets, picnic tables on a concrete pad and a water tower are at the beach, along with a concession stand selling ice cream, sandwiches, appetizers and drinks.

The beach is a short crescent of sand, built along with the boat launch in a project the county finished in 1996. The water is the draw. Summer visibility usually runs 30 to 40 feet, and the surface warms to around 70 degrees by midsummer. That warm layer is thin, though. Below a thermocline that averages about 30 feet down, the water drops to around 40 degrees, and divers report a second, colder layer near 60 feet. This is a flooded quarry, so deep water is never far off, and old haul roads, rock walls and drop-offs sit under the surface. The county's pages say nothing about lifeguards, so plan on swimming unguarded and keep children within reach.

Wazee is not free. Jackson County requires a vehicle admission pass at Wazee all year: $5 per vehicle per day or $30 per vehicle for a calendar-year pass (an extra $1 postage if you buy the annual pass online). Between Memorial Day and Labor Day you pay at the contact station, and when nobody is staffing it you self-register there. Scuba divers pay a separate $5 daily or $40 annual dive fee. The county does not post beach hours online.

The lake is one of the Midwest's best-known dive sites, with roughly 1,500 divers a year by the county's count, and dive flags are mandatory and enforced. Expect divers entering and surfacing along the shore away from the beach. The lake has seen several diving deaths over the years, and a man drowned there in 2023, which is a fair reminder that the cold, deep water a few strokes from shore is unforgiving. Motors are banned on the lake, so the only boats are canoes, kayaks and other paddle craft.

Beyond the beach, the recreation area has 12 rustic campsites with pit toilets and water, about 9 miles of hiking trail, 3 miles of surfaced bike trail, a boat launch, an accessible fishing pier and several overlooks of the surrounding Jackson County Forest. The lake holds two kinds of trout plus smallmouth bass, bluegills and walleye, and anglers work the shore and the pier through the season.