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.

I'm still here! Garden Update

I'm a little late with this post but springtime is finally here! The past month has been alot of big changes for me: a new job, moving into a new apartment, moving my parents out of my childhood home, and catching up with friends I have missed since I left for Arizona two years ago. I'm excited to finally start settling back into life in the midwest and with the start of my favorite season I can't wait for the adventures to start.

Watching the first few daffodils and hyacinths pop up makes me very excited every year because it means that gardening season is right around the corner. This year I have alot to celebrate too because I'm going to be having my biggest garden ever. I was able to secure a plot with the Schaumburg Community Garden, so I will have an 18' x 18' plot walking distance from my apartment. I started the seeds for my tomato, pepper, and squash plants a month ago and am getting set to transplant them into the ground next week at the earliest. El nino is giving us a warm spring so I am thinking it will be ok to plant a bit early.

As for my plot, I spent this past week making rows and putting up a fence to keep the rabbits out. We will see if it works. Tonight I planted lettuce and sunflower seeds and placed an order for a hops rhizome from a local hopyard in Lena, IL.

Tomorrow will be the nicest weekend of the year so we are riding our bikes from Algonquin to Lake Geneva for an overnight camping trip! Spring is here and it feels good!

It begins... Yardfarm 2016

After 2 years of patio gardening in Arizona with little to no success (I got a few inch long poblanos and a bunch of basil) I am finally ready to have a real vegetable garden in the raised bed. During grad school I lived in a unit with a north facing covered balcony... not ideal lighting for growing anything and paired with some white fly problems and not knowing anything about desert gardening I didn't have much luck.

Gardening has been something that has been super important to me since I was a little kid. When I was in grade school my mom gave my sister and I 12-inch flower boxes where we grew marigolds, snapdragons, and petunias. I remember feeling so proud of the plants that I was responsible for and ever since spending time with my mom in the garden has been something I look forward to every summer. For a long time it was just a simple herb garden and planting/weeding flower beds. When I got to college she built a raised bed in the back yard and that's when I got my first real experience doing the seed starting, planting, soil blending, composting, and vegetable gardening. The summer after I graduated college I made my own first herb garden, which was specifically for plants I could use to make tea: chamomile, lemon balm, peppermint, spearmint, and some doomed tea plants, Camellia sinensis. The following summer I added my own tomatoes, potatoes, and cucumbers, which I started in mid January out of excitement. I would carry the plants in and out of the garage in big 5 gallon buckets on days that got above 40 degrees and bring them back in at night.

This year I'll try not to jump the gun (ok... I already planted some lavender and rosemary seeds last week) but in the mean time I've been working on planning out my garden. Since I'll be living in an apartment (east facing balcony, should still be ok!) I'll be growing a few herbs and some potted vegetables on the balcony. However, the big part of my garden project is going to be a raised bed, which I'll be building at my parent's new house. I tried to get into the local community garden near my apartment but all of the plots were reserved by the time I signed my lease. Thankfully my folks agreed to give 32 square feet  of their yard to build an 8 ft x 4 ft raised bed so I'll use that for this year.

Here is the plan for what I'll be growing:

Herbs for cooking: Basil, Rosemary, Oregano, Dill

Herbs for tea: German Chamomile, Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Lemongrass, Ginger, Lavender

Vegetables: Tomato (Brandywine and Matina), Tomatillo, Cucumber, Pepper (Anaheim, Banana, Jalapeno, Poblano, and Tepin), Summer Squash, Lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson and Tangy), Microgreens, Garlic, Green Onions

Fruits: Strawberry, Blueberry, Pineapple (I have an 18 month old plant that I started from a recycled pineapple top in Arizona, hoping it will fruit this summer)

Flowers: Purple Coneflower, Butterfly Milkweed, Sunflower, Poppy, Lupine, Black Eyed Susan, Marigold. I wanted to do a few native plants to try to attract pollinators to my garden.

My first seedling (It's either lavender or rosemary, I mixed up the cups and forgot to label!) popped up yesterday and today it's going to hit 50 degrees so I am excited to kick off the gardening season. After I move into my apartment in mid march I will do the seed starting for the rest of my garden plants. Here's to a successful growing season.

First chamomile harvest of 2012. I got this much chamomile every 2 weeks all summer.

Seed starting tomatoes and cucumbers, February 2013

Container Garden, early spring 2013

Tomato Plant, spring 2013

Container tea garden 2013, chamomile up top with lemon balm and spearmint below

Chamomile in bloom

Raised bed 2013

A praying mantis hatchling. I experimented with them for pest control 2013

Lunch grown completely from the garden

Patio herb garden 2014 in Arizona

Starved Rock State Park: Frozen Waterfalls and Bald Eagles

On Tuesday the groundhog (both Woodstock Willy and Punxsutawney Phil) predicted the onset of an early spring. While this means better weather for most things outdoors, it also means I needed to make it a priority to get down to Starved Rock State Park to see the last bit of ice on the waterfalls. My sister had the day off so we headed south for a day hike through some of the state's most beautiful bluffs and canyons.

Located approximately 90 miles southwest of Chicago in Utica, Illinois, Starved Rock State Park gets its name from Starved Rock, a bluff along the south side of the Illinois River. According to legend, in the 18th century a group of Illinois Indians starved to death on the bluff after being besieged by Potawatomi and Fox warriors.The state park, which was founded in 1911, is one of the most beautiful places in Illinois and features beautiful geology, excellent hiking, and scenic views of the Illinois River. Starved Rock is most famous for its sandstone canyons and waterfalls, which were formed over the course of thousands of years of erosion of St. Peter Sandstone during an event called the Kankakee Torrent (17,000-14,000 years ago).

We arrived at Starved Rock in the late morning and parked at the visitors center on the very western edge of the park, where we began our hike. We started on the bluff trail and headed into French Canyon (paying homage to Louis Joliet, Fr. Jacques Marquette, and other French explorers who first came to the area over 300 years ago), which contained a beautiful frozen waterfall. Much of the trail involved hiking on top of a boardwalk, which was installed to protect the highly susceptible soil and rock from erosion. We continued to Wildcat Canyon, which had a much larger frozen waterfall.

French Canyon

 

Wildcat Canyon

 

After passing Sandstone Point Overlook we descended a big set of stairs and arrived at the river trail. We continued east through Lonetree Canyon along the trail as it followed the shoreline of the Illinois River. Hiking along the river allowed us to see another feature that makes Starved Rock such a cool place: its population of Bald Eagles. Bald Eagles spend the winter along the Illinois River, peaking in number in January/February before migrating back north to breed in the summer. Although I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them, we saw 8 Bald Eagles over the course of our hike.

Descending the stairs to the River Trail

 

Two Bald Eagles perched on the Illinois River

After reaching the river trail the boardwalks ended and the trail turned to dirt, which got a little muddy (good hiking shoes are recommended). The trail turned away from the shore of the river and we hiked into La Salle Canyon (Tonty Canyon was closed due to a defunct bridge). The 1/3 mile side hike into La Salle Canyon terminated at a beautiful waterfall, which was in full flow due to recent rain. After spending some time playing with some long exposure photography at the waterfall (I wish I'd brought a tripod) we made our way back to the river trail.

 

La Salle Canyon Falls

 

After another short time alongside the river we climbed another set of stairs and found ourselves back atop the bluffs, which provided great views of the river below. We continued on the ridge winding inland around Hennepin Canyon and back out onto the bluffs along the river. We crossed Route 71 just before the turnout for Ottawa Canyon and Kaskaskia Canyon.

Looking down into Hennepin Canyon from the Bridge

We decided not to hike into Ottawa or Kaskaskia Canyon in the interest of time (we had been hiking for 3 and a half hours and only had 2 hours of daylight) so we continued on into Illinois Canyon and got halfway through the canyon before reaching a small creek. We opted not to cross so that we didn't have to hike all the way back to the car in cold wet boots but Illinois Canyon was very scenic and probably the widest and largest canyon of any that we had been in.

Illinois Canyon

 We made our way back to the car following the way we came until we got back past La Salle Canyon. From this point we changed it up a bit and took the river trail the entire way back instead of the bluff trail we had come out on. Along the way we spotted dozens of Downy Woodpeckers and other birds. From the river trail we got a great view of Eagle Cliff Overlook.

Downy Woodpecker

Eagle Cliff Overlook

We followed the trail to the top of Eagle Cliff Overlook (more stairs, yay!), which provided us with a beautiful view of the Illinois River, the Starved Rock Lock and Dam (which signs pointed out allowed more than 45 million tons of goods to pass through each year) and Starved Rock. We got back to the car just before sunset, 6 hours, 11 miles, and hundreds of stairs later.

The view from Eagle Cliff Overlook

Starved Rock Lock and Dam

Starved Rock

The Hike: Starved Rock State Park from Visitor's Center to Illinois Canyon via Bluff Trail and River Trail, 11 miles, 200 ft. elevation gain (done multiple times!)

Enjoy Starved Rock and Leave No Trace! Seriously though there was alot of garbage along the trail and it was kind of disappointing to see so many people being such pigs.