Chicago – Page 2 – Third Coast Hikes

My Urban Prairie: Year 1, June

When we moved into our house last June, the backyard had been neglected for a long time. The previous owners were keen to half-finish projects and generally let the yard go unused, except apparently as a place to store used Juul pods. Concrete pavers occupied a fair amount of space, and we saw the opportunity to remove those, add topsoil, and create a garden fairly easily.

Common star of Bethlehem (not-native) — Common Star of Bethlehem (not native, but it was here when I moved in.)

To my eyes, the space along the fence presented the most opportunity for garden experimentation. This long plot of dirt, about 18-20 inches wide and about 40 feet long, was overgrown with weeds peeking up through the cracks in the pavers and untamed mint plants that the neighbor planted on their side of the fence years ago. I decided to plant a prairie here.

Last October, Dave and I, using a pry bar and a 10 foot long pipe to create a fulcrum, removed dozens of pavers from the ground. Then, exhausted and sweaty, we covered the now-exposed sand beneath with a layer of straw and let it decay over winter. Prairies require a cold, dormant season for their seeds to sprout and begin growing. In February, on a lovely about-freezing afternoon, I put on a heavy wool sweater and some leggings, grabbed my shovel and removed about a foot of sand from the tract along the fence. Honestly, it was a refreshing activity. I filled it in with top soil and let it go through a few more freeze/thaw cycles.

A trench dug along a fence in an urban yard. There is snow on the adjacent pavers. A large pile of sand has been removed from the trench. — Sweaty work.

When I felt enough time had passed, and when they arrived in the mail, I cast a tallgrass exposed clay subsoil prairie seed mix along that length of the yard. This is the start of my urban prairie.

Snow covered urban backyard — Prairie seeds require a cold dormancy, so that’s why this all happened in winter.

Why a prairie? Prairies are great. They are beautiful four seasons out of the year. Tallgrasses and a season-long showcase of florals that attract pollinators and birds? Yes, please. Illinois is the Prairie State but we have less than 1% of our prairie left. Native plants attract pollinators, which will help your vegetables produce more food, and their thick and deep root systems soak up water, which helps keep it out of your basement. Beyond that, they provide season-long blooms in a huge array of colors and if you don’t find 10 foot-tall bluegrass stems impressive, I’m not sure what to tell you. They were good enough for Frank Lloyd Wright.

Big seed heads on Big Bluestem grasses (native) — Let’s just look around and try and figure out how Ol’ Frank Lloyd Wright got the idea for those windows.

Restoring a prairie takes a few years. These hearty, tall, gorgeous plants have a deep root structure, the eight-foot-tall big bluestems I’m hoping for will have roots that push down four feet into the earth. Once these perennial plants are established they will require next-to-no work from me. They will also provide a winter haven for insects and a natural landscape I can enjoy all four seasons. For the first two or three years, I will never be able to quit weeding.

Two small rubbery leaves support one large fuzzy leaf. Plant unidentified. — I straight-up have no idea what this plant is.

I chose the tallgrass exposed clay subsoil seed mix from Prairie Moon Nursery. It was the simplest way to get the most diversity of plants that were known to be native to my home region. Now that they are all starting to sprout, I find myself out there most days eyeing tiny flowers and vines. My Seek app is full of things I put there and can’t recognize. Mostly, it’s because they are too small and I am impatient. I know what I planted there, because I have the list of seeds in that mix, so what I need now is a place to catalog what I find.

Common Lamb's Quarters (native) — Common Lamb’s Quarters (native)

Below, is the list of seeds that I ordered from Prairie Moon. Over the course of the season, I’ll be cataloging what I find so that I can better understand what exactly I have done in my backyard. I will likely re-seed next fall, to fill in some patches and create a little more diversity. Once things get taller, I may have to mow, which considering the size of the acreage will probably happen with scissors. Eventually, we’ll have to talk about a controlled burn but that’s not today. I would be a fool to tell you there aren’t way more plants in that bed than there are listed here. It’s a big, open exposed bed of topsoil with no groundcover. I’m fighting weeds I don’t want, and not fighting weeds I think are cute.

Botanical name	Common name
Wildflowers
Agastache foeniculum	Anise Hyssop
Arnoglossum atriplicifolium	Pale Indian Plantain
Asclepias syriaca	Common Milkweed
Astragalus canadensis	Canada Milk Vetch
Baptisia alba	White Wild Indigo
Chamaecrista fasciculata	Partridge Pea
Dalea candida	White Prairie Clover
Dalea purpurea	Purple Prairie Clover
Echinacea pallida	Pale Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea	Purple Coneflower
Gaura biennis	Biennial Gaura
Heliopsis helianthoides	Early Sunflower
Lespedeza capitata	Round-headed Bush Clover
Monarda fistulosa	Wild Bergamot
Napaea dioica	Glade Mallow
Oligoneuron rigidum	Stiff Goldenrod
Penstemon digitalis	Foxglove Beardtongue
Pycnanthemum virginianum	Mountain Mint
Ratibida pinnata	Yellow Coneflower
Rudbeckia hirta	Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia subtomentosa	Sweet Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia triloba	Brown-eyed Susan
Senna hebecarpa	Wild Senna
Silphium laciniatum	Compass Plant
Silphium terebinthinaceum	Prairie Dock
Symphyotrichum laeve	Smooth Blue Aster
Symphyotrichum novae-angliae	New England Aster
Verbena hastata	Blue Vervain
Verbena stricta	Hoary Vervain
Trees, shrubs and vines
Ceanothus americanus	New Jersey Tea
Grasses, sedges and rushes
Andropogon gerardii	Big Bluestem
Elymus canadensis	Canada Wild Rye
Elymus virginicus	Virginia Wild Rye
Juncus dudleyi	Dudley’s Rush
Panicum virgatum	Switch Grass
Sorghastrum nutans	Indian Grass

A green plant with long leafs around a central stalk. Unidentified. — Not sure what this is yet, but I’m hoping it’s milkweed.

“Chicago Transit Hikes: A guide to getting out in nature without a car” is available for pre-order right now

Guys, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever properly introduced myself. My name is Lindsay Welbers and I’m a freelance writer living in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood. My husband and I moved up here in June 2019, after nine years living in the same apartment in Logan Square. We were attracted to the access this neighborhood had to public transit, I’m a 10-15 minute walk away from two Metra lines, the Blue Line, and a ton of CTA and Pace buses. Also, the forest preserves are up here and that’s as close as you can get to wilderness in the city of Chicago. White tailed deer screw up traffic about as often as the Metra does up here.

That’s what inspired me to write “Chicago Transit Hikes: A guide to getting out in nature without a car.” I was in a new place, and I wanted to know what natural spaces I could find. This book is a guide for anyone interested in getting out into nature, without the use of a car. All the hikes in this book are accessible from a train. I tried to make it as useful as possible for as many people as possible, so there should be something for everyone in this book. That includes families with little kids in strollers, people with mobility concerns, and people like myself who prefer a rugged and disconnected hike.

The differences in the natural landscapes of Logan Square and Jefferson Park are subtle but clear. I knew how to find nature when I lived in Logan Square, that was easy. I lived between Palmer Square, The 606 and Humboldt Boulevard, so the natural world felt in many ways fully integrated into the pace of my life. Those are all places I traveled through on my commute, and they’re major pedestrian thoroughfares. They are vibrant natural spaces full of people any day of the year.

Here in Jefferson Park, it’s a little different. In Jefferson Park the nature lives in people’s yards, trees and forest preserves. You have to step into the residential areas to find nature. There aren’t places like Humboldt Boulevard to stroll, or The 606 to easily bike. Instead nature is accessed from people’s backyards. The pace is slower and the natural landscape reflects that. Palmer Square is full of sculptures and the occasional guerilla swing set. Jefferson Park is full of gardens, lawns and most of the swing sets are behind fences. That said it is gorgeous up here. My home office overlooks my backyard and I probably saw a dozen different types of birds today alone. Also, I’m pretty sure there’s an opossum living in my backyard. So I feel #Blessed about that.

My very favorite way to really connect with nature is to backpack across what wilderness we were smart enough to keep that way, but I still live in the city. It’s where my friends are, it’s where I work, it’s where my husband works. I’ve lived my whole life in Illinois, and the entire time I’ve been exploring and trying to better understand our natural landscape. It helps to be able to walk in nature. There’s something about looking in 360 degrees and seeing nothing but oak trees and tallgrass prairies on all sides of you that acts as a salve for the too-connected world we live in. We all haven’t got the time, skills or desire that it takes to wander into the remote corners of the country, like I enjoy doing. There are a few campgrounds in this book, which make it pretty easy to immerse yourself in nature without having to travel too far. The rest of the hikes in this book are more like day hikes, so you can sleep in your own bed at night. Chicago sits at a place of unrivaled beauty in the Great Lakes region, my goal with this book was to show my neighbors how to see that beauty, using the transit system we already have.

“Chicago Transit Hikes: A guide to getting out in nature without a car” is available for pre-order now, and will be released through Belt Publishing in May 2020.

Hiking by train: Veteran’s Acres and Sterne’s Woods & Fen

Sterne’s Fen is on the right, the woods are the left.

Lately my car has been in the shop. That’s just as well, really, because my car is a nearly 26-year-old American muscle car with rear wheel drive. That means, it’s useless on snow and ice. I can usually get around without it, but when I need a car, I need a car. This time the brake lines gave out on me, so getting it fixed was a priority. Getting it back was not.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to get out and see the fall colors. I’m really glad I did because a week later a wind storm blew all the leaves off the trees and a week after that it was snowing. Fall was, like, three weeks long this year. Lame.

A handsome goldfinch eating goldenrod seeds.

Since I didn’t want to fuss with my car, I took advantage of my neighborhood’s robust transit system and took the Up-Northwest Metra line to Crystal Lake. From there, it was a short 10-minute walk through a cute residential neighborhood leading directly to Veteran’s Woods and Sterne’s Woods & Fen.

VW and SW&F features beautiful hikes through gently rolling hills, thick stands of oak, aspen and ash trees, low-lying wetlands with grasses that are taller than you, and a vibrant prairie filled with wildlife. The trailhead is directly next to the Crystal Lake District Nature Center, and a short 10-minute walk from the Crystal Lake Metra station.

This place is known for it’s glacial erratics.

The Nature Center should be the first stop for any visitor to this park. Get a map, there are a lot of illegal, outdated or deer paths in this park (especially in the prairie) and it can be easy to go off the trail. Below the Nature Center is a pond, with a bridge path, and ancient willow trees, but it can get quite mushy if the water is high.

Veteran’s Acres is home to the Wingate Prairie, which is a designated Illinois State Nature Preserve. Visiting the Wingate Prairie gives a modern-day glimpse into what Illinois looked like before the 19th Century and the invention of the steel plow. A previous landowner tried to turn the area into a Christmas tree farm in the mid-20^th Century, as a result a stand of pines juts oddly from the center of the prairie. The dense grasses native to the area are slowly reclaiming that land. Today, the prairie is home to protected species of butterflies and plants that can’t be found anywhere else on the planet.

A pair of goldfinches in Wingate Prairie.

Moving past Wingate Prairie and further into the park, you will encounter a row of power lines running over a wide ribbon of prairie. If you follow the path to the right, you can join up with the Des Plaines River Bike Path, which will net you access to 56 miles of trail north to Wisconsin. If you continue straight, underneath the power lines, you will come to Sterne’s Woods and Fen.

Sterne’s Woods is notably hillier than Veteran’s Acres. There is the steep slope of a moraine between the woods and the fen. If the idea of ending your hike with a steep, long, uphill hike that will have your hamstrings screaming sounds appealing to you, take a right and follow the path through the woods and gently slope down to the low-lying fen. As you return to the trailhead, you’ll come upon a quarter mile march up a steep incline. If that does not sound appealing to you, take a left and head down the hill first, letting gravity do the work for you. The trail is a loop, so if you go either left or right you will follow the same path and end back at this spot.

In case everything I said above didn’t make sense, here’s a map.

When you return, head back across the prairie in the direction of Veteran’s Acres. This time choose a different path than the one you came in on and take in a little more of the surrounding woods and prairie. The trails all converge back at the entrance to Wingate Prairie, which you passed on your way in. Visit during the late afternoon hours and you’ll probably get to see tons of birds feeding on the seeds found among the prairie grasses. When you’re ready to leave the park, exit via the trailhead near the visitor’s center, and return the way you came. There is no shortage of cafes, shops, breweries and restaurants in the blocks around the train station. Most days the train into Chicago runs about every hour, so it isn’t the worst thing in the world if you miss it. Remember that the train heading back into Chicago is on the opposite side of the tracks from where you got off, so make sure you are where you need to be when it arrives.

Bridge paths throughout the pond area in front of the Nature Center.

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.

Urban hikes: Februray 9 snowstorm

In Chicago we just had our first major snowfall of the season. We were predicted to receive 8-14 inches over about 24 hours, thankfully it was probably closer to 9. Don’t worry, they’re calling for more over the next couple of days. I worked from home on Friday, rather than clog the transit system with needless ridership, and CPS cancelled schools. Snow days are cool as an adult because everyone is forced to slow down a lot. Strangers help push stuck cars out of parking spots, drone photographers want you to know that the kids are sledding down the hill in Humboldt Park (good!) I grabbed my camera on my lunch break – and again after work – and sought to document the aftermath of the storm. During my lunch hour I walked to Armitage Produce, to pick up provisions so I could be successfully snowed in all weekend. After work, I had planned to walk from my apartment near Humboldt Boulevard to my dry cleaner’s on Western, pick up my dry cleaning, and take the bus back. When I got to the bus stop I had just missed the bus and another one wouldn’t be coming for another 20 minutes. It takes about 20 minutes to walk home from Western, so I wound up walking the whole way and back. Through that much snow, it really did feel like a hike.

Here’s the funny thing about walking down the sidewalk with 7-9 inches of fresh snow on them, it’s treacherous. Most people and businesses where I live in Logan Square are pretty good about keeping the sidewalks shoveled. The auto shop behind my house even contracts with a guy with a fourwheeler to clear the snow in the alley. But lots of sidewalks go unshoveled, whether because the property owners are jerks or too old or too sick, whatever. Curbs don’t drain sufficiently and dark, muddy puddles of mysterious depth are the greatest danger to dry feet out there. You’ve got to pay careful attention to your footing, it’s not fundamentally different than climbing up a rocky terrain (like in Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin!)

Urban hikes are different than nature hikes in obvious ways, but it’s foolish to discount one because it’s not natural or remote. True, the only wildlife you’re likely to see are pigeons, rats, other people, dogs and trains, but they’re wild and lively nonetheless. I like to think of the streetscape as exactly as worthy of discovery as natural landscapes. The Subway in Zion might be the hike of a lifetime (and it probably is) but every day the underside of the L tracks change every day, and every day I get to see those changes. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to think of the Tastee Freeze as a destination hike in the same sense that Jackson Falls in the Shawnee Forest is a destination. They’re both beautiful, they both welcome everyone, and there is a time of the year when they are the more exciting to see, and a time of the year when they dry up. (Both are best in the spring.)

Urban hikes are great, you just have to learn to appreciate where you are and what’s going on.