camping – Page 2 – Third Coast Hikes

Trip Report: Marengo Ridge Forest Preserve, Thomas Woods Campground

Name: Marengo Ridge Forest Preserve

Location: 2411 N, IL-23, Marengo, IL 60152

Size: 818 acres of oak and hickory woodlands interspersed with spruce, aspen, ash and sumac groves, as well as open prairies (for which I am smitten).
Activities: Hiking, biking, camping, bicycling, birding, cross country skiing and snowshoeing, canoeing and kayaking, dog walking, fishing, geocaching, hunting, horse trails, snowmobiling, sledding

Reservations: Online
Pros: Stunning wildlife, big skies, secluded camping, excellent birding, quiet hikes, under 60 miles from Chicago.
Cons: I wish the night sky was darker there, but that’s what you get for a campground under 60 miles from Chicago. Thomas Woods Campground is only open Friday-Sunday.

Marengo Ridge Forest Preserve is a beautiful and well maintained park and campground about an hour drive northwest from Chicago. It is managed by the McHenry County Conservation District, which maintains the park, shelters and campsites. The park is small, there are only 5 total miles of hiking within the park but the facilities are clean and well maintained.

Marengo Ridge is a perfect little campground for Chicagoans who want to refresh themselves in a natural environment, but who haven’t got much time for a proper trip or travel. We camped one night at Thomas Woods Campground in the Marengo Ridge Forest Preserve in early May 2018. The goal of the trip was to test out all of our equipment before going to Zion National Park over Memorial Day weekend. The hope was that if it was going to fail, it would fail us at Marengo Ridge (an hour away from our home) and not fail us in Zion (miles away from anything.) We really only spent about 36 hours in Marengo Ridge but saw dozens of varieties of wildflowers and an abundant and varied bird population.

Marengo Ridge offers year-round exclusive-use camping for groups up to 100. The adjacent Thomas Woods Campground is more traditional, with 29 individual tent sites and 18 RV sites that can be reserved.

Thomas Woods Campground is a lovely place. We stayed at campsite 30. Marengo Ridge has a whopping 18 walk-in campsites. I love a walk-in campsite, especially when backpacking to a more remote campsite isn’t possible. Each site is probably no more than 500 feet from the parking lot, but spaced far enough apart to provide sufficient seclusion. I think we were easily a quarter mile away from the nearest people, once the sun went down.

Each site is equipped with a tent pad, picnic table and a fire ring with a cooking grate. If you ask nicely when you check in, and pay the campground resident a moderate amount of money, someone will bring firewood directly to your campsite (so no need to worry about hauling it there yourself.) Water supplies are abundant, clear and taste fine. Vault toilets were maintained and tidy.

Marengo Ridge was created when the Wisconsin Glacier retreated 24,000 years ago. The Marengo Ridge moraine is 40 miles long, 3 miles wide and is one of the steepest moraines in Illinois. Early settlers found this hard to farm, so large swaths of the region are untouched by loggers. You can get a really stunning view of the landscape the glacier created by standing at Shelter #2 within the park.

Parts of the land had been used heavily for grazing livestock until it was bought in 1950 and work began to reforest the area, which included planting 15 species of conifers, which aren’t native to the area but did thrive. There are over 10,000 pine trees across 60 acres including Norway Spruce, Douglas fir and Scotch pine in the forest preserve.

Today Marengo Ridge works to remove invasive species and conduct prescribed burns. There are over 300 native plants and wildflowers that thrive in Marengo Ridge (and a beautiful floral show was on display while we visited.) Wildflowers include: wild geranium, columbine, jack-in-the-pulpit, mayapples, bloodroot, asters, shooting stars, black-eyed Susans, phlox, violets and a variety of prairie grasses. Birds abound here, including great-horned owls, wild turkeys, Eastern kingbirds, Broad-winged hawks and plenty of songbirds.

Trail recipes: Chicken and Spanish Rice

Maybe you’ve noticed this, but all food kind of just tastes extra amazing on the trail. Dave and I took a few days to go backpacking in the Shawnee National Forest last August. You can read about that here.

Hands down the best meal we had on that trip was also the easiest to make. Chicken and Spanish Rice. This carby-salty-protein-packed recipe makes enough for two people who have been hiking through heat and humidity of Southern Illinois in August and want to feel human again.

Trail meals are kind of funny because they are not something I would make at home. At home, I don’t use canned chicken. At home, I don’t usually make pre-packaged rice sides. I have the advantage of living in a neighborhood with tons of excellent Latin American food options, so if I want Spanish rice, I’m better off finding a great restaurant. But there are no restaurants in the wilderness.

This tastes like every comforting thing you ever enjoyed about sloppy joes, but made out of chicken and carbs and salt. Honestly, it’s great. Actual Spanish rice does not taste like sloppy joes, but in Knorr’s world, they’re practically the same thing.

My recipe also relies on buying canned chicken from Aldi. Would it work with another brand of canned chicken? Almost certainly. The can of chicken you buy at Aldi has a couple of distinct advantages. 1. A can is 8 oz. Which is easily enough for two people. And 2. It’s really good stuff. Tender, flavorful and it falls apart very easily. You can try to bring fresh chicken on the trail, but that’s your risk to run. Plus, that sounds hard to do. I wouldn’t advise it unless you like being stuck in the wilderness with salmonella poisoning.

Dave and I didn’t think we would actually finish the whole thing but we basically mowed the whole thing down and then passed out by 8:30 p.m. Camping is fun, you guys.

Recipe (serves two heavy portions):

1 package Knorr Fiesta Side Dish, Spanish Rice

1 8oz can chicken from Aldi

1 glug olive oil

Prepare the Spanish rice according to package instructions. We use an Esbit stove and a Stanley pot for backpacking (review to come, I swear). We ended up needing about one and a half fuel cubes for the rice.
While your rice rests, use the remaining fuel cube (or whatever you use) to warm through the canned chicken. You don’t want it to burn, you just want to heat it through.
Portion out the Spanish rice.
Portion out the chicken onto the Spanish rice.
Stir to combine. The chicken should fall apart easily because Aldi is an amazing place with amazing products. (They aren’t paying me to say this, but I would also accept Aldi’s money to say this.)
Eat until you didn’t realize you were hungry enough to eat the whole thing.

Should we let girls into the Boy Scouts?

By Lindsay Welbers

I joke that I was a Boy Scout and that they still owe me a Polar Bear Badge. Scouts who camp out at night while temperatures dip below 32 degrees, including a full day of outdoor activity and the preparation of two hot meals, have earned the badge according to Illowa Council rules.

It’s true that I never belonged to a Boy Scout troop, but I attended more Pathways than most Scouts I have met did. My dad, though he had three daughters, was active in our local council and for years loaned the use of our alfalfa field to the Scouts. If you ever attended a Pathways retreat in a field in Spring Valley, Illinois with your local Boy Scout Troop, you’ve been in my backyard. I hope you had a good time.

Pathways was a wonderful event, I learned so much over those two days every spring. My sisters and I camped every year. Through Pathways I learned how to rappel down a tower, tie knots and operate a crane. I taught other scouts what I knew about horsemanship and I had my bravery tested when I jumped off the zipline. What I think I looked forward to the most was the annual secret after-lights-out capture the flag game. Friends I made through the annual event would gather their friends late at night after everyone else had gone quiet. Behind the rolled hay bales we choose teams and played capture the flag across 18 square acres of open field. When the weather was bad you shivered in tall, wet grass. If the weather was good and the sky was clear, often the Milky Way was out.

There have been headlines in recent weeks about girls who are lobbying to be admitted into the Boy Scouts. These young ladies are extremely talented and capable and deserve every recognition they have already earned. I don’t know if letting girls into the Boy Scouts or boys into the Girl Scouts is the right answer or not, I’ll leave that up to people who know better than me to decide. What I think needs to happen is a shift in thinking on all sides about what scouts take away from outdoor adventures and scouting; and the way society writ large values those who work hard to achieve its highest honors.

Officially, I was a Girl Scout. My troop consisted of girls in my class and we met monthly through the end of 5th grade when our leaders disbanded. (Busy moms, I guess.) Girl Scouts was a great way for girls to learn and grow in an environment free from boys. The Girl Scouts has always been responsive to the changing worlds girls occupy. In the last few years the Girl Scouts have put additional emphasis on STEM programming, which is a huge step ahead towards helping girls become the women who will build our future digital and physical infrastructure. The Girl Scouts have always had a strong commitment for giving girls accurate information about their bodies. They have always been inclusive of all girls. The Girl Scouts are a vital bridge towards gender parity and they deserve every commendation. Also, I will buy every box of cookies any Girl Scout wants to sell me.

Day camp with the Girl Scouts was just different in so many ways than how we spent our time at Pathways. At Girl Scout Camp we recycled old paper into crafty notebooks, made campfire pies, crafted toilet paper wedding dresses and put on a fashion show. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast, but it wasn’t the same kind of merit-and-boundary testing activities I got to do with the Boy Scouts.

Maybe my experience is not universal and there are other troops who got to engage in more exciting or challenging activities. I hope so. I don’t think our troop leaders were actively denying us any kind of experience, I think they were busy moms who hadn’t themselves been exposed to the kind of outdoor adventures Boy Scouts had access to for generations. Every crossing over ceremony I participated in with the Girl Scouts involved crossing a bridge placed in the center of a banquet hall, and giving the three-finger salute. In the Boy Scouts I jumped off a 25-foot-high platform and soared down a zipline into the middle of the alfalfa field. I took more away from standing on the edge of the platform and willing myself to jump than I did walking across a decorative bridge on a linoleum floor.

The outdoors industry has a long way to go before women are represented equitably. That’s part of the problem. We’re 51 percent of outdoors consumers, but only 12.5 percent of major outdoors companies have women CEOs. Only 37 percent of the National Park Service’s employees are women. Things are turning around, Outside Magazine devoted an issue to women this year, Misadventures Magazine puts the focus squarely on what women do in the outdoors (it’s not attract bears). REI’s Force of Nature initiative puts women’s outdoor accomplishments at the center of its campaign, and includes more women-specific gear in its stores. Let’s face it, if a 60 liter pack was designed for a man, it just isn’t going to sit right on a woman’s hips and it will lead to discomfort and maybe injury.

This is all great progress. Today’s girls are growing up in a world where stock photo women are climbing mountains more often than they’re laughing at salads. Don’t tell me that kind of representation doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t do much to fix the generations of women who came before us who didn’t have that same kind of access or representation. The Girl Scouts handbook printed from 1953-1977 put equal emphasis on home making and outdoors adventuring. Those women were definitely given skills and tools they needed, but that sort of structure would be appalling by modern standards. It made sense at the time, but it does not now.

The Girl Scouts should definitely stay the course with their efforts to get girls into entrepreneurial adventures, learning to code and other STEM initiatives at an early age. Those are vital to success in adulthood and in achieving gender parity in business and tech. Crafts are wonderful and the tradition of women creating what they need themselves is more important today than ever before. One way we might be able to jump ahead? Actively encourage girls to leave their comfort zones and give them the same kind of mettle- and boundary-testing experiences I had at Pathways. Teach them to operate a crane and tie knots and rappel down a tower.

Maybe the answer is for the Girl Scouts to do more to get girls outside and into the backwoods. That probably means actively recruiting women to volunteer with or lead troops into the woods. If our foremothers aren’t comfortable or don’t feel equipped to lead a backcountry adventure, then I guess it’s our job to do. That also means eliminating the roadblocks that keep women out of the woods in the first place. Make it easier for families with children to get into the outdoors. Create more accessible campsites and programming. Create scholarships that give low-income girls a space at camp.

The answer might be that Boy Scouts should welcome girls into their membership. That system works in Boy Scouts organization across the globe. No Boy Scout I ever met at Pathways treated me like I was any less capable or deserving of being there. The Girl Scouts have always been run and organized exclusively by women, that’s important. Boy Scouts are sometimes dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. There’s a lot of value girls can gain from building something and learning in an environment free of boys, and the same value exists for boys in an environment free of girls. It might seem like an antiquity, but maybe we don’t have enough of it.

One thing we can do is make a much bigger fuss about the girls who do the hard work it takes to achieve the Gold Award, the equivalent to Eagle Scout. The hard work and community commitment it takes to achieve Eagle Scout unlocks many opportunities for boys, including scholarships, advancements on career tracks and the military. These same opportunities are not as prevalent for Girl Scouts who achieve the Gold Award. If we make a bigger deal about it, more girls will achieve it. It’s kind of indicative of the whole problem, don’t you think?

Trip Report: Shawnee National Forest, August 19-21, 2017

I had the eclipse marked on my calendar probably 8 months in advance, but as the date grew closer I wavered on making the drive. Work was getting crazy, and the car definitely needed to be fixed before I wanted to take it on a six hour road trip. Dave never wavered though. I never heard the kind of wishy-washing that takes place before you take time off to travel to a wedding or to a family reunion. Dave was resolved to go one way or the other. So we went.

The National Park Service seemed more or less to suspend its rules for that weekend. The Shawnee National Forest, located at the southern tip of Illinois, opened campsites that had been closed for years to accommodate the influx of people but even still they were not taking reservations. All sites were first-come-first-serve. We had the advantage of being able to backpack in, which means our camping options were both more numerous and more private than many other campers would be able to enjoy that weekend. We did very little planning beyond deciding to get on the road around 6 a.m. Saturday, which should theoretically put us in Vienna, IL around noon. Which is plenty of time to hike around, find and set up camp.

The park service was not specifically advising people to go to Jackson Falls, so we hoped it would be a more private, secluded long weekend than we might find if we went to Garden of the Gods or other higher trafficked areas. We were probably right. We also made this plan expecting Jackson Falls to have plenty of water – which we learned was a mistake. The falls are dry in August, which we might have learned if we did any advance research. Which we did not.

We hiked about a mile into the park before we came to a rock slide that allowed you to descend into the canyon. When we got to the bottom we ate lunch (cheese, sausage and cherry tomatoes). Other hikers told us we could find water a little further into the canyon, the falls were dry but flowing water is hard to stop any time of year. After about another 15 minutes walking, we did find plenty of creek water. Not exactly flowing, but viable. That night we camped at the bottom of the canyon and heated a dinner of canned chili and minute rice on a fire we built on the dry riverbed.

The canyon at Jackson Falls is very popular with rock climbers. There are sandstone bluffs rise that about 60 feet above the floor and its several degrees cooler at the bottom than on the ridge. Not an unpleasant way to spend a night in Southern Illinois in August. We did move up to the ridge the following night for a couple of reasons, though.

We could. We have the backpacks. We can move wherever we like.
The air was somewhat stagnant at the bottom, which meant stagnant air in the tent.
Sick of walking into spider webs. Orb weavers are EVERYWHERE this time of year. Not poisonous or harmful, but so squicky.

We did some recon the next morning and headed up to the top of the ridge to scout out camping locations before we dragged all of our stuff along with us. We found a relatively flat spot within line of sight of a group of climbers and just a short walk down the path from a big open field. The woods are amazing, and all, but we came here to watch the moon block out the sun and you can’t see that under the canopy.

Dave and I descended back into the canyon and I toted water while he broke camp. We packed up and realized we had absolutely no idea how to get back up to the top with heavy bags. We could take the rock slide we came down, but honestly that sounded kind of scary with 30 pounds strapped to your back. Other hikers had told us about a second entrance close to the falls, so we headed in that direction and started asking people. When we finally did find it, we realized this wasn’t going to be any easier with heavy packs on, so we passed the packs up instead.

It was probably another mile hike from there to our scouted spot, and at this point I think we were both more tired than we expected. The temperatures were in the 90s with high humidity, I think Dave melted a little. We did take a stroll through the open prairie. The grass had been cleared to create a fire access road, but it was also full of some gorgeous plants and dozens of kinds of butterflies. Camping at the top of the ridge was warmer, but the breeze helped mitigate that. We basically made dinner (Aldi canned chicken and Knorr Spanish rice), watched the sunset from behind the trees and went to sleep shortly after it got dark.

The next morning was the day of the eclipse. We were camping less than 500 feet from all the open skies we would need plus we had sunscreen and extra eclipse glasses. I descended back into the canyon to fill our water reservoirs while Dave packed up camp. When I got back to the top we ate granola bars, and waited the show to begin.

A total eclipse of the sun is a dictionary-definition awesome thing. Dave and I stared at the sun for almost three hours (with appropriate protective eyewear, guys, don’t be a dummy). Shortly before totality, the light became decidedly weird. Birds all hushed themselves when it got dark, and for two and a half minutes in the middle of the afternoon, cicadas and crickets started singing. The sun, which shortly before was an orange crescent, was suddenly a black circle with silver light misting around it. As the moon moved on, the orange crescent returned, this time in reverse. Birds started singing but this time it was the high, fast ups and downs of morning songs. I hope they weren’t too upset when the sun set again six hours later. If you have the chance to see it from the path of totality again in 2024, I recommend you do it.

We left the park around 3:30 p.m., headed for the nearest gas station to buy Gatorade and salty snacks and wash three days of camp off of my hands. We refilled our water bladders with that really good fountain machine crushed ice and water (perfection) and headed north on I-57, which was a terrible mistake.

It took us the next 16 hours to travel from Vienna, Illinois back to Chicago. We hit the highway around 4 p.m. and didn’t get back home until 8 a.m. the following morning. I have some pretty brash opinions on this cluster, but you know what? The whole trip was still completely worth it. Totality was amazing. Building a campfire on a dry riverbed was delightful. Nothing makes sense more than the woods, so I won’t let the worst traffic jam of my life ruin what was an amazing experience. Honestly, I don’t think there was much we could have done to avoid it aside from staying an extra day. Next eclipse, though, I’m crashing with my sister in Cleveland.