Oak Ridge Forest Preserve 10-3-10

Today's hike was in Oak Ridge Forest preserve, SE of Rockford. It's another of the several FPs along the Kishwaukee River. Off hand, I don't recall how many there are in total, maybe 10 or 12.

The hike lasted exactly 3 hours, and was probably 5.5 or 5.75 miles long.

Here is the trail map.

The trail head. The trail starts out as a mowed path through the field of weeds.

I am not sure what she is doing here, but she is not pooping. I would have remembered picking it up.

The path soon goes into a nice wooded area. The wooded areas have a lot of gullys that are 5-15 feet deep that you have to walk up and down. Good to have a stick. I noticed a lot of forest type debris on the trail such as sticks. Some of it was pretty good sized, maybe 3-4 inches in diameter. Where I could without too much trouble I flipped it off the trail with my hiking stick, but I was not fanatic about it. I saw evidence of a lot of horse use on the trail. There are a fair number of places where gravel or wood mulch has been put on the trail to control erosion. It's not real hard but it's not an easy level trail either.

Wilma checks out the mini-creek just inside the wooded area.

Marker 2 is near some power lines. These lines are marked as ELEC on the trail map. Never did see marker 1, but the markers are turned sideways to the trail and pretty unobtrusive so I could have missed it. I missed seeing markers 3 and 4 as well. I almost missed marker 7 because I was not looking real hard for it and just happened to look sideways as I was going along the trail and saw it.

I think this is the spur that goes off to what is referred to as future equestrian camping, but if it is the connection to the main trail is quite a distance from where it appears on the map, maybe 1/4 mile. It's past the elec line, well past marker 2.

[update 10-5-10] It occurred to me this may be a bypass trail. It may be the wooded area floods sometimes and is impassable. I noticed several much shorter sections of trail in the fields going around low lying areas along the edge of the woods.

A segment not shown on the map. No idea where it goes, but it seems like it might meet up with the previous spur.

I can't quite make this out but whatever it is I think is on the trail segment headed due south that leaves the main trail past marker 3 and goes to the future equestrian camping area.

A large sinkhole the trail has been re-routed around.

After the sinkhole we go back in the woods. This is a poor picture of one of three gulleys on the right hand side of the trail. They are all 15 or 20 foot drop offs and the FP is trying to control them with piles of gravel, big chunks of concrete, and some logs. It seems to be getting pretty darn close to the trail.

We exit the wooded area again. The comed easement can be seen in the foreground.

 The trail map refers to this area as "existing marsh".

Marker 5.

This could be interesting. We were on the other side of this crossing in Deer Run FP 9-25-10.

 Wilma checks out the water and the sand bar.

 I took a picture of this sand bar from the other side of the river 9-25-10.

Even a good horse crossing has to come to an end and we proceed along the trail. Not far down the trail we come across a canoeist who asks how far it is to Perryville Road. I tell him about a mile. He says he is having a lot of trouble with the log jams. This is not a waterway I would be canoeing in. It's rarely more than a few feet deep, and often only 6 or 8 inches deep. He probably spent as much time pulling or carrying the canoe as floating down the river.

We come across a series of piles of gravel in the creek. My guess is that the creek is trying to eat the trail along the creek so they are trying to control bank erosion with these structures. Might have been half a dozen of them spaced 20 or 30 feet apart. A couple of them provided good access to the water for an inquisitive little beagle.

Look closely and you can see marker 6 under the power lines (elec). There is a dirt road that runs under the lines. There is also a mowed path next to the dirt road. Not sure why, as it appears to be poorly maintained. No reason to have both no more then 10 feet apart.

This is the marker I almost missed. They kind of sneak up on you and I would have missed it except by chance I looked right at it as I was walking down the trail.

 The trail at this point appears to be an old dirt road of some sort.

 Marker 8.

We go on to the island loop. It really is an island of sorts. There is water all around it.

 This is the stream shown as the short segment between the main loop and the 0.9 mile loop. As water bodies go, it is not real impressive. It looks like maybe an 18" culvert supplies this stream under the causeway where you walk onto the island. Wilma thought it was cool even though there is not much water flow and lots of algae.

Eventually we come across a place where we can access a sand bar. It was not an official path, but obviously others have been there as there is a bit of a path through the weeds and human boot prints and dog prints on the sand bar. The bank is a little treacherous in places here but I found a decent place to make my way down.

 Mussel shells. Probably raccoons enjoying a feast.

Marker 1 on the island loop. The entire trail on the island is a mowed path around the perimeter of the island.

 An upside down birdhouse. I saw at least two like this along the trail. Maybe a prankster at work.

 They should be like this one.

 This one is right side up but the front door is open.

[update 10-6-10]I emailed the FPD about the birdhouses on 10-5-10 and got a reply 10-6-10 saying they will be fixed.

 Wilma gets some final creek time at the creek on the trail spur between the two loops.

After this we headed back to the parking lot. We saw a couple horses in the equestrian parking area near the trail head. They went on the trail as we were leaving it.

I enjoyed this hike. I was surprised there were not more water birds. I did not see any at all that I can recall. But there was a lot of variety, and the wooded areas were especially nice, with lots of grade changes.

And the creek beagle had a good time, especially with the creek access.