Sunday, April 29, 2012

Morraine Hills State Park 4-28-12

Fran and I happened to be in the area so we went through the park. The park is bisected by River Road. The McHenry Dam part is in the part SW of River Road. We went in there first. There are 10+ miles of trails according to the park brochure I picked up. The park brochure we picked up at the entrance is a bit old. It still lists Jim Edgar as governor. He left office in 1999. I have had in mind taking Wilma there for a nice hike some day. It is a well developed park that probably gets a lot of use in better weather. Lots of picnic and playground areas. The trails appear to be a mixture of asphalt, gravel and crushed stone. It is a little more developed than I like, so I am somewhat less inclined to go hiking there then I once was. It is a long drive to walk on a run of the mill bike path. But, you never know.

The sense I got of the park was from driving around the park road, and much of the NW side of the park is not accessible by road, so that part of the park may be more to my liking.

Incidentally, there is a paved bike path that goes along River Road from the park entrance up to Bull Valley Road (Miller Road). It does not appear on the park brochure map or the one I downloaded from the DNR web site [map from web site].
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One oddity I noticed. Alcohol is banned from March 1 - May 27. No idea why it is considered especially dangerous to allow alcohol during this time of the year.

ETA 4-30-12: I was curious enough about the part time alcohol ban that I emailed the DNR about it. The reply I got back was this.
The short answer - Partying Teenagers at the end of the school year.
That was not on my list of potential reasons.


[added 5-8-12] I scanned and extracted this trail map from the brochure I got at the park entrance. It is a little better than the one on the ILDNR web site, despite being from 1998. I was told by a park employee in an email that there is a grass trail not shown on the map.
It is a detour off the Leatherleaf Bog Trail. There's a sign at both ends.
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