Best Hiking - Chicagoland/Northern Illinois (DeKalb, West Chicago: movies, camping, living in)

[J. Lundegaard]

I live in urban Chicago but love to go hiking at forest preserves, states parks, national forests, etc. I have a few places I go to in the Chicago burbs to hike and get outside (e.g., Herrick Lake, Palos Hills), but would like more options.

So, can anyone recommend what they consider the best places to hike in the Chicagoland area, which I would roughly consider to encompass Cook County, Lake County, DuPage County, Will County, Kendall County, McHenry, DeKalb County, and Grundy County. I'm willing to drive about 2 hours away from Chicago (actually, probably more if the place is really worth it).

I especially would love to know if there is anywhere that has a remote, rugged feel to it. I've been to Starved Rock a few times and the place, while beautiful, just feels way too crowded and touristy for me. For example, I want to hike a place with lots of miles of hiking trails that are not necessarily accessible to most of the touristy, once-a-year "hikers."

Any ideas, or am I better off moving to Colorado?

[chet everett]

Palisades? It's on the Mississippi. Kind of long drive but less crowded. There is big national park down in Southern Illinois too, probably a four hour drive though...
Boundary Waters up north too, don't go if you hate biting flies...

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by J. Lundegaard

I live in urban Chicago but love to go hiking at forest preserves, states parks, national forests, etc. I have a few places I go to in the Chicago burbs to hike and get outside (e.g., Herrick Lake, Palos Hills), but would like more options.

So, can anyone recommend what they consider the best places to hike in the Chicagoland area, which I would roughly consider to encompass Cook County, Lake County, DuPage County, Will County, Kendall County, McHenry, DeKalb County, and Grundy County. I'm willing to drive about 2 hours away from Chicago (actually, probably more if the place is really worth it).

I especially would love to know if there is anywhere that has a remote, rugged feel to it. I've been to Starved Rock a few times and the place, while beautiful, just feels way too crowded and touristy for me. For example, I want to hike a place with lots of miles of hiking trails that are not necessarily accessible to most of the touristy, once-a-year "hikers."

Any ideas, or am I better off moving to Colorado?

Well, you can certainly get lost and away from the crowds in the endless cornfields 60 miles from Chicago in August and September when the corn is taller than you, and the farmers won't see you so you won't get in trouble (don't try this with soybeans, as they only come up to your knees at their peak)

The reason Starved Rock is so crowded and touristy, is that its just about very literally the only spot within two hours of Chicago that actually has natural canyons and waterfalls, also where you can camp. Nearby Mathiessen is a little less crowded, but no camping allowed, not as many trails, but still nice.

I'd go with Chet, the whole area where Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota is going to be the most rugged area within four hours of Chicago. They call it the driftless area, because the glaciers never wen through there. Mississippi Palisades is IMO a really good choice. Nearby Wisconsin is going to have even more options west of Madison. Check out far NE Iowa too like Effigy Mounds, etc.

(The glaciers were like a combination bullldozers and manure spreader - which is why its flat, with nothing more than little rises, and many wetlands/lakes).

Other than that yes, you would have to far enough south (Missouri Ozarks, Kentucky, adjacent south Illinois/south Indiana) or far enough north into Northern Wisconsin or Michigan). The central midwest is basically all agriculture.

[ChacoGirl]

Call the REI in Oakbrook and ask the staffers they can hook you up with loads of options

[ImaloneJill]

Indiana Dunes has got beautiful trails.

[Vasily]

Here's a list of forest preserves with trail lengths in DuPage County:

Forest Preserves List

Also, Kettle Moraine State Park South is about two hours from Chicago, and definitely worth the trip:

Kettle Moraine South - Wisconsin DNR

[PurpleMountainMajesties]

Yes this is my main problem with living in Illinois. Totally flat! and I love hiking and I get very frustrated. I'm tired of going to Starved Rock over and over again, plus I don't want to have to drive 2 hours just to hike. Most people I know in Chicagoland have no interest in hiking, it's just not a hiking culture, because there are no mountains. Chicago is a great city if you like bars, clubs, nightlife, museums, going to the movies, going shopping, and blah blah blah. I could care less about that stuff. I want mountains and I want to hike and ski. For now I will enjoy this city and spring time in Chicago is nice, but I will be moving to CO or OR in the near future. Peace out.

[nana053]

While these are not in mountains, you might find some of them appealing. They are not long hikes, but there is a bit of natural beauty.

Hiking near Chicago - Best Hikes, Guides, and Trail Maps | EveryTrail

This one looks good:

Waterfall Glen Hike - Hiking trip | EveryTrail

There is some hiking in the Indiana Dunes as well.

Check out backpacker.com
Chicago Backpacking, Hiking and Camping Trips | Backpacker Magazine | Backpacker Magazine

Shabbona Lake, surrounded by rolling farmland 60 miles west of Chicago, is known more for its fishing than hiking—it's the Muskie Capitol of Illinois, after all. But, this 4.8-mile loop samples the rolling prairie and bottomland woods that characterize the 1,550-acre Shabbona Lake State Recreation Area .

Chicago: Red Gate Woods - West Loop Hike | Backpacker Magazine


Chicago: Swallow Cliffs
Enjoy the views and solitude of this 9.6 mile out-and-back trek through wind and water-scoured ravines to glacier-carved moraines in southeast Chicago.

[55degrees]

This might be really tame (and flat) compared to what you're used to, but what about Chain o Lakes?
DNR

[Vasily]

My parents moved here from northern Virginia when I was two, and I always wanted to move back to a region with more vertical relief, one preferably with the ocean nearby. I ended up moving to Charlottesville, VA in the piedmont in the mid 1970s, 30 miles from the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was beautiful, it was pretty much everything I'd been looking for.

Then, I came back to Illinois after being away for a few years, driving through West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. Shortly after I came across the Illinois border, the horizon receded into infinity, and an immense sky opened up above me. It took my breath away ... and it was the first time I appreciated the natural beauty of flatness (in the Carolinas, where I moved in the 80s and where I'll likely move for retirement in a few years, you have a similar flat grandeur in the lowlands near the coast).

In the early 80s, John Madson published a book titled "Where the Sky Began"; it was a natural history of the tall grass prairie, and in particular the boundary in Illinois and Iowa where the great eastern forests met the tall grass prairie. It was the book that got people interested in prairie preservation, and today there are a lot of prairie remnants being preserved by various conservation agencies, as well as midwesterners starting native plant patches in their gardens. If you're interested in the natural history of a place, I highly recommend his book.

I moved back to Illinois from North Carolina in the late 80s, and visited for the first time the West Chicago Prairie, one of the larger tall grass prairie remnants in Illinois. and as I approached I saw many plants I'd only seen before in books ... it gives one a feel for what this place was like back before it all went to corn: a vast parkland (as the early visitors described it), with tongues of woodland extending into the place where the prairie began.

It's not a natural beauty that hits you over the head, like the Rockies or the Smokies ... it's a subtler thing. But you can grow to love this place for its remnants of another time. I particularly like (and recommend) the Fox River valley, one of the lovelier river valleys in the area (there are 32 miles of trails in the Fox River Trail, part of the Illinois Prairie Path). If you're not already familiar with it, I'd suggest checking out the Illinois Prairie Path:

Illinois Prairie Path. North America's first successful rails-to-trails conversion. Founded 1963.

But if you can't do without the mountains and , you'd be better off considering a move to a place like Colorado ... or somewhere along the Appalachian chain in the east. I miss the mountains and the sea, and don't know if I can take too many more Chicago winters.