By Sue Shekut, LMT, ACSM PT, Certified Wellness Coach
My boyfriend and I are avid hikers and bicyclers. We have spent many happy hours biking and hiking around Chicago area forest preserves this spring, summer and fall. But we get tired of the relative flatness of the terrain. Then we went to Starved Rock State Park this October and fell in love with the canyons in the area. We hiked about 8 miles one sunny Sunday, climbing literally hundreds of stairs and hills. It’s not the Grand Canyon, but for Chicagoans, it’s only 1.5 hours away from downtown and well worth the trip! And, it’s family friendly. We saw many parents with small children, babies in backpacks and people from all over the Chicago area.
I’ve loaded some of the pictures we took and use them as screen backgrounds. Feel free to use them yourself to give you a bit of natural relaxation on your computer desktop.
The View of Starved Rock from Lover’s Leap, the rock outcropping directly opposite Starved Rock.
Starved Rock
LaSalle Canyon. See how small the person in the picture is compared to the canyon? This gives you an idea of the majestic size and scale of the canyon.
LaSalle Canyon at Starved Rock, Oct 2009
I love this shot of the bottom of one set of stairs along the hike. Some thoughtful previous traveler gave us a heads up on the stair count before us. 155 stairs to climb. With the motivational cue: Do It Fatman!
We did it!
Stairs at Starved Rock
The view from the top of the stairs. Indeed, 151 stairs we climbed. And prior to that another 141 stairs at another area of the trail.)
Another view of LaSalle Canyon. At this time of year, there was less water so we were able to hike into the canyon and walk all the way back to the edge of the waterfall which is behind us in this shot.
If you look closely you can see the tiny trickle of waterfall still falling in October.
