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.
