I’m a serious walker, so I see bicyclists as a subspecies of Satanists. Though after hiking 13 miles Monday afternoon on the I&M Canal State Trail, I should beg the Almighty for forgiveness.
Of the nearly 100 cyclists that zoomed past me, only one came silently close enough to raise the hair on my arms. All others were unfailingly polite, saying, “On your left” or “Hello,” as they barreled past me, missing the blooming fleabane.
As a serious walker, I love the Will County Triple Crown Challenge that the Forest Preserve District of Will County devised. It’s my kind of quixotic quest. That’s why I was on the I&M.
The challenge is to hike the three longest trails in Will County — the 22-mile Wauponsee Glacial Trail, the 14-mile Old Plank Road Trail and the 13 miles of the I&M Canal State Trail in Will County — before June 30.
It’s modeled on the triple crown of hiking in the United States: the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide and the Pacific Crest Trail. A friend, Tim Hogeboom, who is an author (Triple Crown Diary: Appalachian Trail) and filmmaker (North to Katahdin on the Appalachian Trail), has completed it. I can’t do that, but I can do the Will County one. Or work at doing it.
I started at McKinley Woods in Channahon, after our youngest son dropped me off at 12:15 p.m. A guy fished the canal with corn, for carp I assumed, but he was catching bullheads. I only saw one other angler, a young man fishing for bluegill near my lunch spot at the Bridge Street access.
My first mammal was a groundhog. Early June and already it was a blubbery waddler. Other mammals were chipmunks, a fox squirrel, a gray squirrel, a rabbit, three deer and a muskrat, on the trail near a muskrat house well out of the water with the low water levels. I smelled a skunk but didn’t see it.
Because the I&M trail is mostly crushed limestone — with parts that are paved, concrete or mere tire tracks through vegetation — I stuck with my favorite walking shoes. I took a knapsack with moleskin (nothing shuts down hiking like a blister), water, a collapsible lightweight rain hoodie, baseball cap, insect repellent, a portable phone charger, notebook, duct tape (fixes everything) and sunscreen.
Quickly, I walked into a surprising stillness.
I had my first sighting of a Baltimore Oriole this year within the first hour. Other birds I saw or heard were Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, mallards, a wood duck, a cormorant, crows, swallows, a gray catbird, great blue herons, egrets, robins, sandpipers, grackles, house sparrows, a northern flicker and a red-bellied woodpecker, From the calls, the Merlin bird app added eastern kingbird, cedar waxwing, American goldfinch, song sparrrow, indigo bunting, eastern wood-pewee, house wren, downy woodpecker and blue-gray gnatcatcher.
I saw no monarch butterflies but a bumblebee worked common milkweed late afternoon. Other insects and their ilk included dragonflies, a few damselflies, red admiral butterflies, and other moths and butterflies.
At times the trail goes over a narrow strip of land between the canal and the Des Plaines River. Other times the landscapes sprawl out.
I heard multiple bullfrogs croaking and several frogs I couldn’t identify. Other amphibians and reptiles included a thick northern watersnake and several turtles sliding into the water.
The vegetation surprise was a multitude of mulberries, my first of the year (apparently I’m spending too much time in prairies instead of woods). Blooming natives were sparse, mainly bird’s foot trefoil and daisy fleabane. Water lilies were intense in many areas of both the Des Plaines and the canal. There was quite a lot of poison hemlock in the eastern miles. Plenty of non-natives and invasives bloomed.
The I&M, completed in 1848, opened up a connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River (and the Gulf of Mexico). It was closed to navigation in 1933.
I saw cyclists from beginning to end. But I didn’t see another hiker until the second hour at the Bridge Street access, where I ate my late lunch of grilled chicken pocket pitas, homemade potato salad spruced up with smoked paprika, and a low-sodium V8. I saw only four hikers. Apparently cyclists won the soul of the outdoors.
My favorite moments were seeing the joy that a very young mulberry-picking boy, out with his grandparents, showed when he found the watersnake, and seeing a doe by the canal drinking within a couple hundred yards of the constant rumble of I-55.
One other observation, after an afternoon of walking between a river and a canal: we need rain, I mean like in a 1988 sort of way.
I made it back by 6:20 p.m. at the Brandon Road access to kiss my wife, who came after work to pick me up.
It was time.
Not bad, 13 miles in 6 hours and five minutes. Even with lollygagging for lunch, photos and listening to birds, I did 2.14 mph.
To complete the challenge after hiking the three trails, you must submit a form with photos and a brief description by June 30, to receive an adjustable bottle sling cooler with a zipper pouch made from post-consumer plastic. Even if I don’t make the deadline, I intend to finish it. I enjoy quixotic quests. Some hikers have already completed the challenge.
More at reconnectwithnature.org/triple-crown-challenge/.
Stray cast
Following the Sox is the antithesis of hiking the I&M.
