Saturday October 11, 2025 Hike Summary

On a sunny Saturday October 11th, we opened up the Fall 2025 hiking season. Sam Morales was our leader today, and he led 16 other hikers, including 2 new hikers, a husband/wife pair from Collinsville, Illinois. We met at Zion church, and were going to hike the Jackson Falls trail of 049. Sam had gone down early to check parking availability, and saw that the place was already packed, so, we “adjusted, and took 3 pickups full of people all the way down to the heliport area, We made sure not to block the gate. We walked on down the road, and, I happened to notice a somewhat familiar vehicle. Hmmm. We headed onto the trail. About 45 minutes into the hike, I heard a noise behind me and we stepped off the trail to let about 25 horses and their riders pass by us. There had been some rain in the area in the past week or so, and there was actually some moisture in spots. We either passed around several other equine groups or met with some during the rest of the hike. We heard 2 trains rumble through down the tracks, even saw the cars through the trees on 1 train. We got to the falls, where we ate lunch…and met up with the driver of the pickup, a fellow hiker from Shawneetown, out by himself. There was a trickle of water over the falls. There were dozens and dozens, maybe even over 100 rock climbers out also. Several groups from Purdue University. We distributed the new, Reusable trash bags at the meet up spot to begin the hike, but fortunately, I don’t think we picked up 1 full bag of trash, which Is a Good thing. We got up to the waterfall on top, and the group kind of split up on the way back…some hiking out to the road, some staying on the trail. We essentially did the hike “backwards” compared to most of the previous hikes we have done in this area. We got in about 5.5 miles. There were small camps and vehicles scattered almost every where along the road, with the 3 day weekend. 

Next weeks’ hike will be on the Turkey Trail of the Crab orchard area. Cathy Jennings will be our leader, and the hike will be around 5 miles. 

Saturday March 15, 2025 Hike Summary

It was cloudy this morning and had rained just a few hours before Marcus Owens led 21 other hikers South down the upper trail at Jackson Falls. The first stop was the carving into the rock of the Civil war soldier, then on to the top of the falls. There had been enough rain to make the 3 waterfalls we saw run nicely. We stayed on top” on the West side of the falls. We made a few stops to just take in the views Above the valley. We continued to work our way north, bit by bit, until we came to the area that we slowly worked our way down toward the railroad tracks. Then, we headed south alongside the tracks for just a few hundred feet, then back onto the trail, along the lower bluffs. Today, we saw No horses, just a few other hikers at the parking lot, and No rock climbers at all, which was a bit unusual. We got to the bottom of the main falls, where we quickly ate our lunch, because it was starting to sprinkle/shower some rain. We took the group picture with the water tumbling Over the falls in the background, then headed out, to climb up and out through the keyhole. By the time we got up through the keyhole, the rain sprinkles had stopped. We crossed a few streams, then back to the parking lot. We were done by a few minutes after 1pm. 

Next weeks’ hike, on Saturday March 22nd, will be led by Corey Evans, meeting at the huge Knights of the Golden Circle parking lot, on Forest Road,  near Garden of Gods. 

Until then, “See ya’ll On the Trail”.