Dispatches: Hiking All of Illinois

When the pandemic hit in 2020, everyone had their own immediate reaction and a slow-burn coping mechanism.

Some panic-bought toilet paper. Others took advantage of steeply discounted flights. Others still froze in place and watched our normal collapse around us.

Myself? I packed up my desk (shoes, a sandwich I had planned to eat that day, a back-up stick of deodorant, an extra charging cable), headed home, and asked my husband to stock us up on snacks. I switched my commute to the train to a commute to a local coffee shop and back to my dining table almost every morning. After a few weeks of this, and watching the pandemic unfold into a Pandemic, I decided to set some aspirations for myself to help me quash that “stuck in the house” feeling.

So I decided to make it my goal to hike in all 309 Illinois state parks by 2025.

Ambitious? Yes.

Delightful? Yes.

Attainable? Yes.

Setting this goal pushed me out of my comfort zone in the most comforting of ways—using the near-empty trails out in Illinois nature as my carrot to safely get out of the house and work towards something that was at once both challenging and invigorating.

Now, in 2022, I’m not nearly half-way through the list, but I’ve made measurable progress and noted some learnings along the way:

• Illinois state parks are really spread out.

• Illinois as a state is large. My pinnacle of Illinois Parks, Shawnee National Forest, is over six hours away. Hardly a day hike option.

• Illinois is a lot of prarie, but it’s not all prarie. The more south and the more west you go, the better the elevation.

• Not all state parks are created equal or are actually parks.

• Hiking alone as a woman can get weird fast.

• Bring a full change of clothes, including shoes and underwear.

• Hiking in the rain is a spiritual experience.