Hiking the Hennepin Canal Trail, Part 4

Hiking the Hennepin Canal Trail Across Illinois West to East | Tiskilwa to Bureau Junction | Finishing Illinois Counties | Camping at Chain o’ Lakes State Park | April 2026

On our second to last day of hiking the Hennepin, we woke up to a cool and foggy day in rural Illinois. We had set ourselves up for an easier last 2 days, where we would only need to walk 9 miles each day. Our first stretch this morning was 5 miles round trip, heading East from where we camped at Lock 11. We were close to the town of Tiskilwa and could hear some traffic in the distance, but the trail itself was pretty quiet this morning besides some people fishing. On this stretch, we passed by Locks 10 and 9, and decided to make 8 our turn around point. We enjoyed wildflowers along this stretch of trail, as well as some small hills and bluffs along the North side of the canal.

When we were finished, we packed up the van and drove from Lock 11 to Lock 6, the Easternmost camping area along the trail, and our last. It was pretty out of the way, and busier than we expected for a harder to reach trailhead. After having lunch and relaxing for a while in the van, we set out for our second stretch of the day.

This time, we walked 4 miles round trip, to Lock 8 and back. We walked across Lock 6 to start the trail, and then 7 came halfway along this stretch. Some of the trail paralleled Bureau Creek, which we had learned from the ranger makes the canal and trail much harder to maintain. Often enough, the creek has flooded and washed out some of the trail to the point of the canal breaching the levee! We enjoyed the bridges over the creek and the views it gave in either direction. This was an easier stretch of trail, and soon enough we were back at the van, ready for a night of rest in preparation for our last day on the trail!

We awoke this morning ready and motivated to finish what we set out to do. It was supposed to be a warmer day, so we wasted no time in getting out to hike our first section: 5 miles to the I-180 bridge and back. We crossed back over Lock 6, then started our trek East. Thankfully there was a bit more shade on this stretch of trail, so we stayed comfortable for this morning’s walk. I had noticed on the map that we would be going by some wetlands, which could mean we would see some cool birds, or it could just mean more mosquitos. However, what we ended up hearing was the best thing we could’ve asked for: the familiar call of the sandhill crane that we’ve grown to love! We couldn’t see it, but just hearing it in the distance made our last day so special. When we reached the bridge, we took a short break and then made our way back to lock 6.

Back at the van, we got back on the road and drove over to our last trailhead, next to Lock 3 in Bureau Junction. We had been here before in February of 2025, when we hiked our second ever stretch of this trail from lock 3 to lock 2 with Charlotte. Since we had done that before with her, we wanted to preserve those memories and not redo that section, just as we left the very beginning in Colona untouched this year to preserve the memories we have walking it with her. And so, our final section of the trail would be from Lock 3 to I-180 and back, an easy 4 mile hike. We passed by Lock 4 on the way, and despite it being warm and mostly in the sun, the hike went by fast, and soon enough we were back crossing the bridge over lock 3. We did it!

Both ends of the Hennepin Canal Trail – Above Bureau Junction in February 2025, Below Colona in March 2025

After snapping a few pictures to commemorate our accomplishment, we hopped in the van to cool off and plan the rest of our day. The easy thing to do would have been to return to Lock 6 and camp there again, then figure out what to do next. However, we had just made plans for the following day, and those plans had set us up to complete one other huge goal we had for the state of Illinois: We would be getting our final county in the state! We mapped out our route to Lake County, found what we hoped would be an enjoyable place to camp, and got on the road.

Like I mentioned, Lake county was our last county in the state, and that is just North of Cook county and Chicago. We were a little tempted to stop and revisit some favorite spots in La Salle or North Utica before driving North, but ended up just pushing on since we had a 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. We took I-39 North to Rockford, then took highway roads East over to the Northeastern corner of the state, officially crossing into our last county in Chain o’ Lakes State Park. And that’s how we completed two big goals in one afternoon!

For the first 9 nears of our travels together, Illinois was always just a drive-across state. It felt like a burden to cross to get between Iowa and Michigan, especially from Joliet to the Indiana state line, and we hardly ever stopped to do anything, besides two of our travel goals: we hiked to the high point in 2017, and visited the three Whispering Giants between 2016 and 2021. But when Curtis first accepted his new job, on our first ever trip to North Carolina, we took the opportunity to visit Shawnee National Forest, and slowly our opinion of the state started to change. It turned out that it does have some good hiking available, at least by Midwest standards. Then Curtis’ first ever outage with his job was near the town of Ottawa, and we very quickly fell in love with that area: the friendly small town, complete with good restaurants and plenty of great outdoor recreation nearby in Starved Rock State Park and other parks. Throughout all our trips between the Midwest and East Coast, we slowly started branching out and entering even more counties. We returned many more times to work at Ottawa and at 3 other plants, in Joliet, Quad Cities, and Bloomington/Decatur. Now, some of these jobs have become our favorites and ones we look forward to returning to every year. And we recently became big fans of the canal trails across the state, as you’ve read about in this post and others this spring as we’ve hiked sections of the I&M Canal Trail and just now completed the Hennepin. It took us 3.5 years with the job to finally enter into our last of its 102 counties, making it our 15th state completion!

You may noticed there’s one place I haven’t mentioned…and that’s Chicago. That’s right, somehow we’ve visited every single county in the state together, but we have not gone into its biggest city together (I have been several times with my family as a kid, but all I can tell you about that is that the American Girl store was the highlight for me back then!). Maybe there’s some trauma involved in keeping us away, such as all the traffic we’ve had to endure going around the city on I-80, or it’s just in the name because of the fact that Curtis was once an officer on the USS Chicago…who knows? Hopefully we’ll be able to change that someday and enjoy the city…maybe via public transportation. And our other Illinois goal still left unfinished would be to complete the I&M Canal Trail someday.

Anyway, back to today: We had decided to camp at Chain o’ Lakes State Park, and it was honestly one of the best campgrounds we’ve stayed at in the Midwest. For only $12, we got a primitive site near the lake, and had access to unlimited hot showers — exactly what we needed after 10 days of hiking with only a few quick cold showers behind the van! After getting all clean and cozy, we had dinner, relaxed while listening to Noah Kahan’s newest album, and went for a sunset walk down to the dock on the lake. We enjoyed the stillness of the water, listened to sandhill cranes, and saw some swans floating in the distance. A perfect ending to our exciting day!