On a cold, windy, but Sunny Saturday morning, Bill Gilmour met 11 other hikers at the Goreville IL city park. We had 1 new hiker all the way from Lincoln IL. Everyone else was a returning hiker. We moved out, going South down Rt. 37, to Rebman lane, the next road South of the entrance to Ferne Clyffe state park, We parked and headed down the lane, crossing an old wooden bridge that held up just for us. We took a left, going South, until we came to an old barn at the end of the lane. The barn is well constructed, but nothing is left in the barn.  We could tell, looking at a side hallway that some of the rafters had been hand-hewn, with an axe, and in 1 of the stalls, we saw a rabbit, sitting peacefully.  Most of the rest of the hike was bush-whacking/off trail. along and beside short areas of bluff, down into various valleys. We saw several small ‘windows’, several ‘dribbling’ small waterfalls from overhangs well above us, and, with the cool start to the morning, some icicles. We made it to Dunntown waterfall for lunch. You have to scramble over quite a few large boulders to get a ‘close-up’ view, and, for pics today, the sun was shining right at most cameras. The waterflow was light enough to be just more than a spray. We then worked our way around the bluff, then an upward climb, and around until we got to the stream, and followed it ‘down’ to the top of Dunntown Falls. We then worked our way up the stream, finding a piece of Lepidodendron fossil in a rock in the stream and then hit a lane back to the vehicle parking lot. We ended up hiking just under 4  miles, but, a lot of it was off trail/bush-whacking. 

Next week, Sat. March 25th, we will meet at the big Forest Service Benham Hill Trailhead parking lot, led by Shawn Gossman, starting at 10 am. . 

Until then, See Ya’ll On the Trail.