Starved Rock / Illinois & St. Louis Canyons
Hiking in Starved Rock State Park | Illinois Canyon | St. Louis Canyon | February 2023
Even though Curtis was on shift work, working 12 hour night shifts, and only getting one day off a week, we still managed to fit in two more hikes in Starved Rock State Park over our second weekend in Ottawa. After sleeping all day Saturday, we went out for a late afternoon hike before he had to go back to work that night. For this evening’s hike, we chose the Illinois Canyon Trail, which is the furthest East trail in Starved Rock State Park, making it the closest to Ottawa. The entire trail out and back is less than a mile long, making it the perfect short evening walk.
We arrived at the parking lot off IL-71 and found the lot to be super muddy and have large puddles. That turned out to be the case for the majority of the trail as well. It became clear very early on that tonight would end with a bath for Charlotte. Besides the mud, the views of the high sandstone cliffs along the trail were great. There were still some icicles hanging on, but much of the snow we had seen in the park the weekend prior had melted. Obviously we appreciated the warmer weather, but I think hiking on snowy trails or snowshoeing would have been easier than trudging through mud, and the views would have been even better.
The Illinois Canyon Trail goes back a half-mile before reaching the waterfall at the end of the canyon. Unfortunately, there was a creek with high, cold water flowing that kept us from making it to the very end. We walked along it trying to find a way across, but it just wasn’t possible today. Oh well, at least we still made it outside today!
The next morning, we went for another longer hike to St. Louis Canyon on the far West side of the park. Curtis was pretty tired by this point since he had been up all night, but the hotel had a policy that they had to clean rooms with dogs once a week, so we decided to go for another hike instead of sitting around and waiting. We had thought that this hike would be a similar length to Illinois Canyon, but the road to the closest trailhead was gated off (we later saw that people just park outside the gate and walk the road in though). We returned to the main parking lot near the visitor center, hiked up a lot of stairs to the lodge, then followed a trail that took us on the bluff that follows the main park road, passed several smaller canyons and waterfalls, and eventually led us to the junction with St. Louis Canyon. Overall the trail was less muddy than the day before, and the trail going into St. Louis Canyon had bridges that went over the creek so we were able to make it to the end.
Having hiked several of these canyons now, I can tell you that they’re all very similar, so if you only have a day to explore the park it isn’t necessary to try to see them all. But since we were here for an extended amount of time, it was fun to take the time to hike to each one. I’d say this one and Wildcat Canyon were the better ones, not only for the end reward but also because the trails were better maintained. We thought it was great that the whole park was free to visit, but the longer we spent hiking here, the more we realized how certain trails and parking lots are in desperate need of more maintenance. Maybe a small fee or yearly pass would help, I mean this is the most popular state park in Illinois and given how many people we saw there each time we visited, it’s clearly loved by the people here — something should be done to help preserve it.
On our walk back, we passed by the park lodge and stopped to see the Whispering Giant located outside. We had previously seen this one in 2016, but we were only passing through then. We can definitely say we’ve seen most of the park now. We took a different route home and stopped by the lock and dam opposite the park to grab National Park stamps for the Illinois & Michigan Canal NHA. It also offered different views of the bluffs that make up Starved Rock.
Anyway, despite Curtis being exhausted, we enjoyed this hike, and it killed enough time so our hotel room was ready for us when we returned. He slept for the rest of the day, then had that evening off from work.
