Hiking the Hennepin Canal Trail, Part 3

Hiking the Hennepin Canal Trail Across Illinois from West to East | Langley to Tiskilwa | April 2026

After yesterday’s longer day of walking, we decided to take it a bit easier today and only walk about 7 miles. It was shaping up to be another hot day, and Curtis had a meeting mid day to attend. We started it off with a shorter walk, only 1.5 miles to the visitor center from the Bridge 14 camping area. The trail was now on the South side of the canal, so we were in the shade for most of the walk. We had actually walked part of this section before 2 years prior, from the visitor center to the railroad bridge, so we didn’t technically have to redo it. We decided to do it anyway so that we could top off our water containers again and then sit in the shade and enjoy the park. Up until the day prior, I had been consumed by thinking about how fast we could possibly complete this trail and go on to the next thing, but today I was starting to realize how perfect this was for us and how I sort of wished we could slow things down and enjoy it more. It’s a blessing when you can realize in the moment that what you’re doing right now is going to be something you’ll look back on and wish you can relive!

Hennepin Canal State Park, March 2024 vs April 2026

We returned to the van at Bridge 14, then sat outside in the shade, working and having some snacks. Curtis called in to his meeting and I read. A few other people came by, some to go fishing and another to go mushroom hunting in the woods. We think finding and harvesting mushrooms is cool, but just seeing him walk into the tall weeds made me cringe — all I can think about is the ticks and poison ivy that I know are all around us! I was just so glad to have a wide, well-maintained trail to walk on so I could easily avoid those things.

When Curtis was done with his meeting, he and I were just sitting outside, fully absorbed in reading or work, when Curtis suddenly looked up and noticed that we had a visitor. A little raccoon had gone unnoticed as it wandered into the camping area and was now within 15 feet of us! He was cool though, he just wanted to make sure we didn’t need help with finishing our snacks or cleaning up our trash, and then he went on his way.

In the late afternoon, we finally decided it was about time that we went for our second walk of the day. This time, we walked two miles East to a point that was halfway between bridge 14 and Lock 21, which is where our next campground was. We had been hoping that the shade we had enjoyed this morning would continue since we were still walking along the South side of the trail, but unfortunately there wasn’t much along this stretch. It was hot, but at least we had some nice views along the way, and it was still shorter than yesterday’s walk.

We had been planning on spending another night at this bridge and then driving to lock 21 in the morning, but then we realized that there was a water spigot where we could finally fill up our water tank, which meant we could take showers! And so we swiftly packed up the van and drove to the water source, and then to the campground where we found a spot and immediately set up to take a quick shower. It was important that we wasted no time in doing this because the sun was starting to set and it would soon feel too cold to shower, especially since we currently don’t have a water heater! We immediately felt so much better and felt unstoppable now that we had enough water to not only drink, but also cook with, wash dishes, and feel clean. It’s the little things!

The campground at Lock 21 felt the most like an official camping area than anywhere else we’d been. It was a larger area with dispersed spots, several outhouses, and each site had a picnic table and fire pit. It was also the first campground where the ranger actually came around to collect payments. We were happy to pay the $8 to stay here though after how much we had been enjoying the trail so far! We have no idea why they hadn’t come around before, but maybe just a mix of it still not being peak season and not having enough rangers to drive to all the different camping areas.

The next day was going to be another hot one, so we got an early start on our first stretch of the trail. We walked West for 2 miles to the spot where we had left off the night before. There wasn’t a lot of shade, but knowing that we could drink as much water as we wanted and wash off the sweat when we got back made it better. We saw more of the flopping fish in the water that we had seen several days prior, but otherwise this was a pretty uneventful stretch of trail. We had been hearing from different rangers that this entire time we had been on the ‘boring’ stretch of trail, which has just a few locks and is mostly walking through farmland. Honestly, despite it not having locks or much change in scenery, I never thought of it as boring to begin with, but I had noticed that it was getting easier to break up the trail into smaller sections and that there was more camping available on the East half of the trail. So maybe it’s a good thing we started with the Western sections while we were staying in Davenport, and then chose to walk from West to East. This is also where being a Midwesterner has its benefits, since we aren’t used to seeing mountains regularly, we can be satisfied with the simple beauty of farmland and big open sky!

After returning to the van, Curtis got some work done and I relaxed outside for a while. When we were ready to continue, we got back on the trail and this time walked 2 miles East. This was when we really started to see more locks. To put it in perspective, there are a total of 33 locks on the Hennepin Canal Trail, which are numbered 1-33 from East to West. We were camping at lock 21, meaning at this point we had hiked by 12 locks throughout the 44 miles of trail we had hiked so far. We now had 16 miles of the trail left to get to Bureau Junction, and would see 19 locks throughout that stretch. I personally wouldn’t say that locks are the most interesting part of the canal, but I guess this is what the rangers meant when they said they thought this was the more interesting section.

Anyway, over the 2 miles we walked, we saw 3 different locks, including 21 which was close to where we were camping. There were also more wetlands along this stretch of trail, which meant more bird sightings, and the clouds were really cool which meant beautiful reflections against the water. We made it to the town of Wyanet where we walked to the pedestrian bridge that veers off the trail and goes over the canal. We made this our turnaround point, and enjoyed the view overlooking the canal and trail. After that, we turned around and made our way back to the van.

We decided to move on to the next campground down the line for the evening, which was next to lock 17. Some of the drive through rural Illinois paralleled the trail, so I tried not to look at where we would be walking the next day as to not spoil it for myself! When we arrived, we found a grassy camping area a bit smaller than the others we had seen, but that wasn’t a problem since there was only one other person camping here tonight. There was a chance of a thunderstorm that evening, so I was just glad that there weren’t a lot of trees in the area. We relaxed outside for the rest of the day, enjoying the cooler air that was coming in with the cold front. The ranger came around again to collect payments, and we ended up talking to him for a long time. He told us about a race that happens annually on the trail called the Hennepin Hundred, where runners will start in Rock Falls and run down the feeder canal, then when they make it to the Hennepin Canal Trail they run East to Lock 11, then turn around and run all the way to Colona at the West end, all in one stretch. Crazy! We couldn’t get over all the details that go into having that many people and their supporters on this trail at once, and how crazy runners are in general. He said it typically happens in October, if anyone is wondering when to avoid the trail!

The storms that evening didn’t amount to anything, and we just got rain — though there were nearby train tracks that did have some activity through the night. The next morning was cool and cloudy, once again much more comfortable for walking. Because of that, and because of our two lighter days of walking, we were feeling more ambitious today to walk a bit more than we had been. We started off by walking 2 miles West back to the pedestrian bridge near Wyanet. Along the way, we crossed over an aqueduct (where we also saw a goose walking across on the bridge) and saw some cool ruins on the side of the trail. We also saw lock 18 on this stretch.

After snacks and some rest, we got back on the trail and this time walked 2 miles East. This time, we saw locks 16, 15, 14, and finally turned around at lock 13. Next, we drove to the next camping area at lock 11, and went for another late afternoon walk West to lock 13 and back. This was another quick and easy stretch, with lock 12 in the middle. The campground at lock 11 wasn’t quite what we expected since it was kind of in a weird spot, off a dead end road next to several private residences, but there was a decent sized lot, outhouses, and picnic tables here, as well as the lock and a no longer functioning bridge. It worked for tonight, but if we were ever driving across Illinois and wanting to camp at one of the campgrounds, we wouldn’t choose this one. The ranger came by again to collect payment, but we didn’t see him after tonight.

With that, we had another 11 miles completed, and had only 18 miles to go! The end was in sight — and as much as we were excited to say we had completed this, we were also bummed that it was almost over. Does anyone have any recommendations for other long distance trails in the Midwest that allow overnight parking in the trailhead lots??