It is late afternoon when John O’Dell parks his old Chevy along a gravel road in Pope County and begins to walk down a rough-hewn trail through the Shawnee National Forest.
Dressed in shorts, hiking shoes and a T-shirt, O’Dell, 63, carries a walking stick and a can of spray paint.
It is a typical summer day in far Southern Illinois, hot and humid, but the canopy of trees provides shade as he hikes more than two miles into the dense forest.
Every so often, O’Dell stops before a tree. Like a streetcorner tagger incongruously transported to a sylvan setting, he raises the spray can and directs a blast of paint at the trunk. The idea is to mark trees at regular intervals, not with graffiti, but with a small symbol: a dash and a dot – Morse Code for t and e.
It stands for “trail entrance,” and it is the mark of Illinois’ River to River Trail, a scenic path that weaves across the entire state, covering 146 miles from its easternmost point, Battery Rock on the Ohio River, to its westernmost, the Mississippi River near the town of Grand Tower.
As O’Dell heads back to his car, he stops near Lusk Creek to rest, and to listen.
“There are not many times in your life that you can actually listen to a living forest,” O’Dell remarks. “There are so many things going on. You listen to the stream, the wind in the trees, the insects, the unusual bird call.
“Occasionally you will hear a deer snort. It is an amalgam of all these things together. There is a harmony to it.”
After a 20 minute respite O’Dell leaves, his work on the trail finished for the day. The retired school superintendent, who was one of the primary forces behind the trail’s recent official designation, has always loved the outdoors.
“It is part of my nature,” he says.
A walk in the Shawnee Forest takes you through many things. Native hardwoods: Oak and Hickory, along with Tulip Poplar, Sugar Maple, American Beech and a dozen other tree species. Wild flowers: Black-eyed Susan, Wild Ginger, Bloodroot, Dutchman’s-Breeches and the occasional Crane Fly, Coral Root or Putty Root orchid. Rock outcroppings: Moss-covered and lush with Boston ferns, many of them are emblazoned as well with concentric bands formed by iron oxide.
And always, the signature of wildlife. Overhead, rays of sunlight pierce the leafy canopy and outline elaborate spider webs high in the branches. Birds chatter back and forth. Encounters with deer are not uncommon.
It is a sensory feast and for once, it owes a great deal to human beings.
O’Dell, a former Navy officer who lives with his family on a small farm south of Harrisburg, helped conceive of the trail during the year that he was director of tourism for Southern Illinois.
“We started looking around and could see the key to the future had to be the development of tourism,” he recalls. “The only way that we were going to get ahead was to develop an attraction to bring people to Southern Illinois.
“As we assessed our strengths we saw that the Shawnee National Forest was one of them.”
The National Forest covers some 275,000 acres across the southern tip of Illinois, an area that geologically is much different from the rest of the state.
“When I came here from North Dakota four years ago I expected Illinois to be very flat,” said Forest Supervisor Louise Odegaard. “I think most people have a perception of Illinois as flat country and farm fields. When I got down here I found that because of glaciation stopping around Mt. Vernon the flatness stops and to the south you have a lot of topography– large bluffs, high country and low country.”
The non-glaciated areas are known as the Ozark and Shawnee Hills.
Connecting with the past
O’Dell and others thought that a hiking trail across the Shawnee could be the attraction needed to draw people to the area.
The idea of a such a trail was not a new one. L.O. Trigg, a local newspaper editor, and Delyte Morris, a former president of Southern Illinois University, had both supported the plan before they died.
“We could see where a trail was but it was incomplete and not well marked,” O’Dell said. “There have been trails here for a long time. The early ones were made by the pioneers, who used the paths made by the Indians and the animals. It was a matter of connecting those.
“When we began the concept of what a river-to-river trail could be, and what it could do for the area, there was no continuity, so we organized.”
In January 1992, the River to River Trail Society was chartered. O’Dell heads the not-for-profit group, which numbers 950 members.
“We looked at several trail systems and learned there is a difference between loops and long trails,” he said. “Long trails excite people, the ones that connect from one place to another, so we copied the Appalachian Trail.”
The River to River Trail was divided into 19 sections, with a volunteer board member assigned to oversee each area. It is the same model used along the Appalachian Mountain Trail.
Working with the Forest Service, the various sections were connected and marked.
The River to River Trail was chosen by the American Discovery Trail (a coast to coast trail) as the Illinois link along its Southern Midwest Route (the American Discovery Trail also has a Northern Midwest Route that slices through upstate Illinois).
“Think of this, the Garden of the Gods in Illinois and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado are both on the same trail,” O’Dell said, as he stood in front of a small store called the Trail Emporium that he operates with his family in Herod.
“You can stand here, right here on the corner in Herod, and find your way to Washington, D.C., or the Pacific Ocean. People respond to that.”
Spectacular scenery
O’Dell’s son, Mark, 21, a student at Southeastern Illinois College, is responsible for the section of trail that runs from the Garden of the Gods to Herod.
The Garden of the Gods is home to the most spectacular rock formations in Illinois. As part of the Shawnee Hills, a very old mountain range, the area was covered once by a giant inland sea.
When glaciers stopped to the north and their melting released tremendous volumes of water, it eroded the soft sandstone and limestone in the area, creating valleys and formations that earned evocative names such as Camel Rock, Noah’s Ark, Mushroom Rock and Anvil Rock.
On a recent day Mark walked the trail.
“I have been hiking for as long as I can remember,” said Mark. “I have an interest in native orchids and there are three varieties of them along this section of the trail.
During his walk he looked for trash and checked to see if any of the trail markers had been removed.
He stooped to move a large log that had fallen across the path.
“There are some very interesting overlooks and beautiful plants like ostrich ferns along this trail.
“I usually come out here by myself, it is very relaxing, very quiet. If I am stressed out, I will come out here to relax,” he said. “I rarely encounter other people. I don’t take photos, I like to remember it with my mind’s eye.”
The trail is not terribly difficult, but it is not like walking on a sidewalk either–it has hills, some of which are steep. Mark O’Dell recommends that hikers carry water, compass and a map.
“It is important to stay on the trail, do not wander off into the woods. I have never gotten lost,” he said. “Not yet.”
On this day young O’Dell had little work to do along the trail, but this is not always the case. The more people who use the trail, the more care it needs.
“Erosion is something we watch for. It can be caused by people and horses on the old roadbeds, especially old wagon roadbeds–they have ruts in them and where they go down a hill, those ruts get enormous,” said John O’Dell. “You can install water bars and take the water off the trail at several places so it does not wash away.”
The society has regular monthly work days to install things like the water bars, which are large pieces of wood anchored crosswise on the trail to divert water.
“I see more people nationwide hiking,” Odegaard said. “In the last decade people have begun to take a lot of short vacations closer to home. We are seeing more and more people getting out and just walking for pleasure.”
“The fall is my favorite time in our forest, the colors are just incredible,” she said.
Says John O’Dell: “As the population gets larger a trail offers something special, and it is very inexpensive. We have to understand that there are going to be more hikers, because it is not an expensive thing. For folks who walk, it costs nothing.”
A British couple hiking across the United States passed through Illinois and met O’Dell. Later he received a letter from them.
“They said the two favorite places they saw were the Grand Tetons (in Wyoming) and Peters Cave at Lusk Creek Canyon, just a few miles from here.”
“One of things that this trail offers is solitude. It is a pristine trail. You see things here that you will not see anyplace else.”
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For information on the River to River Trail write to P.O. Box 70, Herod, Ill., 62947 or call 618-264-5555. For information on the Shawnee National Forest call 1-800-MY WOODS (699-6637).
