Shawnee National Forest

Kathryn took Friday and Tuesday off for a 5 day Memorial Day break. We decided to head to Shawnee National Forest at the very Southern tip of Illinois for a few days of hiking.

Our plan included hikes and exploration of 4 state parks:
Fox Ridge State Park (on the way to Shawnee National Forest),
Cave in the Rock State Park,
Ferne Clyff State Park and,
Giant City State Park.

Our plan also included hikes in:
Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area,
Rim Rock Recreational Area and,
High Knob Recreational Area.

All in all 13 hikes in 7 different places.

Friday, May 28

We headed out around 10:00 from Saint Charles. On the way, we planned to do a hike in central Illinois at Fox Ridge State Park. The day was cool, overcast and rainy. The drive was interesting. To Fox Ridge it was about 265 miles buy, heading South through the middle of Illinois the route took us on small narrow highways, back streets and through many small rural towns.

The towns, in general, were pretty depressing. Most had run down, dilapidated buildings and homes. We saw many abandoned homes in a state of mold and collapse and downtowns with more vacant store fronts than anything. Note- see my entry below for May 31 for a different perspective in some of the Southern most small towns.

Fox Ridge State Park

We finally zig zagged our way to the State Park. Everything was wet so we just had our picnic lunch in the car.

Luckily, the rain had taken a break for our hike and the park had no one in it, which is nice. The maps were a little difficult to discern but, we did the Eagle's nest hike and several other loops in what All Trails (app) called the Fox Ridge Loop Hike. Excellent. A hidden gem in Central Illinois.

Airbnd in Shawnee Nat Forest (near Equality, IL)

After the hike we drove the remaining 140 miles to our AirBnd in the north eastern section of the Shawnee National Forest. We are in the sticks! As we pulled up, the neighbor across the way pulled around in his pick-up truck and welcomed us. Ed, offered if we needed anythings, not to hesitate to come by and ask. We said we packed groceries for the week and his reply was "thats good because I don't think there is a grocery store in the county". Again, we are in the sticks!

Unfortunately, or maybe not so, there is no cell phone service or internet at the Airbnb. We used the land line (if you don't know what that is...look it up!) in the house to just let Jake know we arrived.

The house turned out to be real nice. It is a converted old pole barn that has been newly renovated into a home with a big family room a modern kitchen and a comfortable bedroom. The 2nd bedroom was a bed stuffed in the walk-in closet of the real bedroom! Creative! The construction and furniture is all pretty new which is nice. Clean and comfortable. A good find.

Sat, May 29

Cool and rainy. Fortunately, we got lucky again and the rain cleared by noon and we had a good afternoon of hiking in cool, overcast weather.

Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area

Only about 7 miles from our Airbnb is the Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area which is the most popular part of the Shawnee National Forest.

And Popular it was. After barely seeing anyone on the roads.. boom the GOG parking lots were jammin. Luckily, we found someone pulling out just as we arrived and we grabbed up a good spot right away.

The main attraction is the Garden of the Gods Observation trail which is a tiny hike with tons of spectacular sandstone structures and look outs. It was pretty busy but a really neat place I did not know existed in Illinois. A smaller version of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

Garden of the Gods Observation Trail

Garden of the Gods Wilderness Trail

The next hike we did took us into the woods and was nice because after the crowds on the first trail, there we not many people on this trail. Pretty hilly hike in lots of mucky mud. But, lot's of nice sandstone structures and caves along the route.

After the hike we found a park bench and had a late afternoon picnic lunch, then back to the bnb for naps!

Sun, May 30

Weather: A perfect spring day forecasted to be sunny and 70!

Cave in the Rock State Park

Our first destination was at the very Southern tip of Illinois on the Ohio river, Cave in the Rock State Park.

The hike was rather disappointing. The trail started on roadways in a campground and was not obvious where the trail led from there. A kind camper saw us a bit perplexed and asked if we needed help. He pointed us to a grassy trail leading out of the back of one of the camp sites. We headed that way, walked through the woods, fairly underwhelming and the trail completes on a stretch of road within the park. This was a one star hike!

Cave In Rock SP - Hickory Ridge Trail

Cave In Rock SP - The Cave

After our hike we headed to the Cave (the real attraction for the park). There are some cool rock structures heading down to the Ohio river bank and then you find the Cave. Bigger than I had been expecting. Really, really cool. So, a weak hike and a cool cave. Not a bad first stop.

Cave In Rock SP - Ohio River

A nice view of the Ohio river near the cave.

There was a small lodge and some cabins near the cave where we parked. The lodge had a restaurant. They we serving a buffet for lunch. Fried Chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, pieces of pie. Smelled pretty good (to me)! A busy restaurant and no sign of a mask, getting back to normal! We decided to pass on the fried chicken and headed to our next destination to eat our picnic lunch.

Rim Rock Recreational Area

We drove to the Rim Rock Recreational Area. It was about 1:00 when we arrived so we grabbed a bench and ate our picnic lunch.

We hiked the Rim Rock Rec Trail. It ran along a nice cliff with some vistas and steep drop offs. The highlight was when we took stairs down the cliff and wound up in some very cool rock formations that we walked through and around. Very, very cool spot. We finished the hike and headed to the next destination.

Stone Face Trail - High Knob Rec Area

The final place we planned to hike was a trail All Trails recommended. It wasn't in a State park or wilderness area but, it was on our back to the bnb.

The drive was there was an adventure. Google guided us to High Knob Ln which I took and found ourselves in the middle of a horse ranch. Lot's of horses and lots of people learning to cowboy! ended up on a tiny gravel road and was a wrong turn. We left the dude ranch and got back on track.

The last 1.5 miles (so we thought) was another gravel road. We were in my Maxima (should have been in Kathryn's Armada). The wheel ruts left a high mound in the middle I was barely clearing. We got to a steep water filled rut and almost get stuck. We passed a jeep on the way out and they gave us a strange look as if, you idiots, this is not a road for cars.

We went another mile down the road getting more and more sketchy and in the middle of nowhere Google declared we had arrived. A few hundred yards more and I had had enough. We turned around, navigated the rut on the way out and skipped that last hike.

On our way back to the bnb we stopped for some ice cream.

All in all a very good day. Could have skipped the sketchy gravel road tho.

Mon, May 31

Weather: Another perfect spring day forecasted to be sunny and mid 70s - nice!

We drove about 45 miles in the National Forest to reach Ferne Clyff State Park on the Eastern side of the park.

Note- earlier in the week on our way from Saint Charles to Southern Illinois I mentioned the rather depressing, decaying small towns we went through in the heart of central Illinois. The small towns we went through going to the park were much different, nicely. Houses and lawns were well kept (no old refrigerators in the front yard!) and newer trucks in the driveways. Small towns that were still alive and well.

Ferne Clyff State park

We had to park in the camp ground to access the Waterfall Trail. The trail was rugged and eventually crossed the creek and merged with the Big Rocky Hollow Trail. The highlight was where the waterfall should have been! Not much water coming down but, the rock formations were still pretty cool.

Ferne Clyff SP - Waterfall and Big Rocky Hollow Trails

We couldn't find the trail head for the last small hike planned for this park so, we headed to our next destination, Giant City State Park another 15 miles toward the East end of the national park.

We really liked this park. We did three fairly short but all rugged hikes in the park to complete a great day of hiking. Lots of rock formations and caves... I published too many pictures but, I liked the hikes and was just amazed we were actually still in Illinois.

Giant City State Park - Trillium Trail

Giant City State Park - Devils Stand Table Trail

Giant City State Park - Giant City Nature Trail

Tue, June 1

Another nice day for travel back home, sunny and 70s. Lounged around, had breakfast, packed up and headed home. The drive (350) miles was uneventful.

Home Sweet Home!

Summary

Really good trip. Great hiking and scenery. Did not expect to find hills and awesome sandstone rock formations in Illinois. Very nice place for some good hiking. This is a huge national forest with a lot to offer. Except for the one Garden of the Gods trail, the trails were lightly trafficked (many with no on at all) even on such a busy Memorial Day weekend.

We visited 4 State parks, 3 wilderness areas and got most of our 13 planned hikes in. We like to hike!

Lessons learned:
Be prepared to go without cell and internet, even GPS. So, print maps!,
Be cautious about driving a car on remote gravel roads. Best in a jeep or high clearance truck.
National Forests and State Parks are a great alternative to the hugely crowded National Parks.