Giant City State Park, Illinois

You can tell this is an old campground, the sites are pretty small and not at all level. No, we did not crash the Toyota into the tree, that’s just the only way it would fit on our site. But it is worth it because this is one of the prettiest and most unusual parks we’ve visited.

We’ve taken three short hikes here. The first was a loop up to a rocky peninsula that overlooked the park road.

The neck of the peninsula has a rock wall running all the way across it. This wall was built over 1,000 years ago and archaeologists have no idea why, but they do not think is was defensive, even though the local name for this site is the stone fort.

The end of the peninsula is quite rocky and drops off abruptly. A pretty and interesting spot for sure.

Yesterday we took the Giant City Nature Walk. After a short walk through the woods we came to this wooden walkway.

At the far end the path takes you between huge sandstone rocks, the “streets” of Giant City. The sandstone was broken apart as the last glaciers melted.

The size and regularity of these rocks are impressive.

Even the graffiti is fascinating.

This very narrow passage led up and under…

this balanced rock.

A second walkway with stairs brought you down and around to the other side of the formation.

There was a very long undercut shelf on this side, you can just see another hiker on the far end of the shelf.

Today we took the Trillium Trail through the aptly named Fern Rock Conservation Area.

Again we were walking by sandstone cliffs.

The cliffs had large overhangs.

This rock was a narrow wedge, you can see Bud’s walking stick, which was almost as long as the width of the rock.

We thought these were even bigger than the rocks at the Giant City site.

Storms went through last night, but it was still dry behind this rock under the overhang.

Because the cliffs face north it is cool and damp, besides the ferns there is moss and I found one of my favorite plants, these flattened little liverworts. Both mosses and liverworts are non vascular plants, so they can’t transport water from roots, they need a very moist site so water can seep into all of their cells.

We met some hikers who spotted this critter. I think it is a Northern Slimy Salamander. It has no lungs and gets oxygen through its skin and the lining of its mouth, so it also needs a moist environment. I was thrilled to see these decidedly non-desert species.

The second half of this walk took us through the woods above the cliff. Matey was on his leash. It looked safe…

but we were close to the edge. There were fissures…

and it was a long ways down. Look closely and you can see the hikers we met, now at the base of the cliff while we are on top.

So even with an old campground with tight, uneven spaces, this was definitely a place worth visiting.