Lake Geneva via the Prairie Trail

As much as I am loving being back in Illinois, it is still tough to be back from Arizona. Going from warm and sunny everyday to crazy midwestern weather in the middle of winter isn't an easy adjustment, but it's also the lifestyle change too. In Arizona I was a grad student with a flexible schedule and I was never more than a half hour away from the mountains and excellent hiking. By moving back home I'm suddenly cut off from those things, and so I started to look for the way to fill that void. For an outdoorsman Illinois can look pretty bleak, our only NPS managed sites are historical sites, we are on the lower end of public land available for recreation, and what hasn't been developed into housing is usually farmland. In fact, less than 1% of the "prairie" state is actually true prairie.

Fortunately, while they may not be as epic as backpacking through the Grand Canyon or Kachina Peaks in Flagstaff, there are still great ways to get outdoors. One of the best is our rail-trails. Before the rise of the automobile or aviation, railroads were the dominate form of transportation across the country. As Americans became less dependent on railways, tracks began to sit abandoned, especially near the hub of Chicago. Recognizing the value of the land for recreation, people began to convert these old rail lines to shared use paths for bicyclists, joggers, and equestrians for most of the year and snowmobilers in the winter. This weekend we crossed off a bucketlist item and rode the prairie trail 26 miles from my hometown of Algonquin, IL up to the state border and crossed into Wisconsin. From there we continued 10 miles through rolling farmland into the town of Lake Geneva, where we camped at Big Foot Beach State Park.

The prairie trail uses portions of the old Chicago and Northwestern Rail Line that through McHenry County, from its southern border with Kane county 26 miles up to the northern border with Wisconsin. The trail also continues south through Elgin and ultimately connects with other trails in the area including DuPage County's Prairie Path (they like to insist that this is the REAL prairie trail/path). The weather was absolutely perfect for our ride. After weeks of crazy midwestern spring weather we finally saw 80 and sunny. We would be using the Prairie Trail as a bike-packing route, loading all of our camping gear into our backpacks and carrying what we would need for the night. Unlike every other backpacking trip I've done through national parks or forests, this would be a backpacking trip right through suburban/rural communities outside the country's 3rd largest city. After a short mile ride through a residential part of town we arrived at Towne Park and linked up with the Prairie Trail.

The crazy part of the Prairie Trail is that while you are often less than a hundred feet from houses and businesses, bicycling through the tunnel of trees makes you feel like you're much further. The first leg of the trail is 6/7 miles into Crystal Lake. The trail passes over Algonquin Road on a pedestrian bridge and winds through a wooded area past a gravel mine in Lake in the Hills. From there the trees drop off and the scenery becomes a large wetland. You pass Lake in the Hills Airport, cross over Pyott Road on a recently completed pedestrian bridge and wind up in downtown Crystal Lake after passing under Route 14 a mile later.

The trail ends and the route enters Downtown Crystal Lake, which offers a variety of bars and restaurants. We stopped in for a beer at Matt's Tavern to rest before getting back on the trail and continuing north. After a short ride through a residential neighborhood, we crossed Terra Cotta Avenue and rode through a hilly powerline right of way into Sterne's Woods. Unlike the open prairie/wetland we rode through before this area was heavily wooded and also had the largest hills of the entire ride.

Once the trail leaves Sterne's Woods, it links back up with the railroad and follows it in parallel north to McHenry, where it arrives around mile 15. The stretch of trail between Crystal Lake and McHenry is mostly open farmland and is pretty flat. Once you reach McHenry the trail gets much busier as it crosses through a residential area and "Fort McHenry". to the North the trail passes alongside McCullom Lake through Peterson Park.

After a few miles of riding through farmland the trail enters the town of Ringwood at mile 18. This is also the place where the trail transitions from paved asphalt to compacted gravel, and although it is a bit bumpier and not as nice to ride on, it is very well compacted and I had no problems riding on a road bike. At mile 20 you enter Glacial Park, McHenry County Conservation District's most beautiful open space with over 3400 acres of protected land. Along the trail there is a nice shaded picnic area and we made lunch and enjoyed the view of the prairie before continuing north over Nippersink Creek, where you'll often see paddlers.

At mile 24 the trail enters Richmond, IL, the last stop before the border. The trail becomes more wooded and enters a residential area before terminating in Genoa City, WI. From this point on the ride uses paved roads without a bicycle path. The ride through Genoa City is a ride through your stereotypical midwestern small town. The people were extremely friendly to us. Along the way we had someone come out of their house with bottles of water asking us if we needed directions. As we stopped along the highway to rest someone pulled over and asked if we were ok and needed anything.

After leaving Genoa City our route followed Highway H for a few miles before turning off onto Deignan Road to take a route with less traffic. The road passed through farm fields and after 2 miles of heading west we turned north onto Spring Creek Road, which had some challenging hills for two tired bicyclists. Spring Creek Road linked back up with Highway H, which we followed for 5 more miles before reaching Four Season's Nature Preserve and the border of the town of Lake Geneva.