14th July 2007
This is the first ever trail in US under the "Bhraman 07".
It was organised in the small scale depending upon all availability of
interested people. This was one day activity. The participant were
Sanjay, Sumit, Vishwanath, Murugesan(KK) & me.
The area
was UTIKA which 90 miles south west of Chicago. The Starved rock state
park is one of the old national park concentrated on around the
Illinois river.
We started from Presidential Tower in the morning with rental car
squeezing 5 of us. Our pilot was KK and Navigator Sumit. It was 2 hrs
drive completing 95 miles. Got all required info from the Visitor
Center near the main parking lot. Identified our route and started at
around 11am. We planned for the River trail and then further till Lone
point shelter. The expected total distance was 12.3 Miles to and from.
Though our navigator was bit not sure about completion but later he
made is mind clear after experiencing the set route. Almost the entire
route was either set by wooden track and at some point concrete. At
some of the view points wooden barricade were placed so that people can
do photography site for some time to get relaxed view of the Illinois
river. So over all the definition of adventure here is very protective
here as compare with what we do in Sahyadri mountains of India.
We passed through Lover's Leap Overlook, Eagle Cliff Overlook, Pontiac
Canyon, Beehive Overlook, Wildcat Canyon, Sandstone Point Overlook and
then to Parkman's Plain. We missed our route at this point. instead of
going towards Owl Canyon we overlook the map and went ahead straight
towards parking place. We used this place as our st lon break. After
refreshing ourselves we decided to reach till Council Overhang point
instead of Lone Point (since this last point seems more crowded with
Parking etc.) and then return from the Council Overhang. Unfortunately
I don't know how many days but the route was closed due to some reason.
So we had to return from this point itself. It was 2:15pm at this time.
While returning we visited all bypassed points like Lasalle Canyon,
Tonty Canyon and Finally the Starved Rock. All these 3 places were very
beautiful. The La salle Canyon was still flowing we spent some more
time for photography.
By the time we return to the parking place it was 4:00pm so we all
decided to visit the Lemont Ram temple which is on the way to use the
full utilisation of our time. In Next 1 hrs we reached the Ram temple.
It is a beautiful temple. We had prasadam here, and the return journey
to our home.
Overall for me its feel good experience something which I always like
to do.
Photo
Link Coming soon...
Rajan Rikame
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