CRT2017 – Garden of the Gods

On day four we drove through the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. I'd love to get back there someday for a more extended visit. While at the trailhead for this hike, we ended up talking to one of the groundskeepers for quite a while about all of the other things to do in the National Forest. I still have the map he annotated for us. He even pointed out some cool local restaurants we should check out. The hike was pretty amazing. Pictures don't really do it justice. It's a set of rock formations and cliffs that are made of sandstone. The signs said that they are about 320 million years old. Back then, the area was covered by a giant inland sea and rivers deposited sand and mud there. When an eventual uplift occurred, it fractured the bedrock exposing it to weathering and erosion.