A glance out the window tells us just as much as the Labor Day note on the calendar that we’re heading into fall.
Trees sporting shades of green all summer now flash sprinklings of orange and yellow. Soon, almost faster than we can stow T-shirts and pull out the sweaters, nature will have made its own fall fashion statement, garbing the Midwest in scarlet and gold.
Experience tells us that our favorite neighborhood maples and oaks bring forth oohs and aahs the first and second week of October. But color changes can come as early as mid-September in Wisconsin and Michigan and in some areas of Illinois and Indiana — depending, say the experts, on species, moisture and other climate conditions.
That means it is not too early to plot a fall foliage tour. Don’t forget the camera.
Admission to the following is free, except where parking fees are noted:
CHICAGOLAND
Drive to the Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre “outdoor plant museum” about half an hour west of Chicago at 4100 Illinois Highway 53, Lisle. Open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. DST and until 5 p.m. CST. Fall color festival each weekend from Sept. 29 through Oct. 28. Free admission, $7 per car parking for non-members. Color Hotline: 630-719-7955. Visitors Center: 630-719-2465.
The Arboretum has more than 10 miles of hiking trails and roads past everything from crimson sugar maples and burgundy-hued white ash to brilliant yellow tulip trees and fiery red sumacs and burning bushes. A bonus is having knowledgeable people on hand, such as plant information specialist Doris Taylor.
“The temperature changes and shorter days start to shut down a plant at the end of August and into September,” Taylor says. “The nice sunny days and cool nights start the sugar process in the leaves. Cool nights keep the sugar in the leaves, and the leaves produce less and less of the green chlorophyll pigment. Changes here start earlier in September and go later into October, sometimes into November. Maples. Ash. It’s a kaleidoscope of color.”
Tour Messenger Woods, Bruce Road north of U.S. Highway 6, east of Cedar Road, near Lockport, Sept. 29; Hickory Creek, LaPorte Road Access, LaPorte Road 1 mile east of Wolf Road, Mokena, Oct. 6; Goodenow Grove (starts at Plum Tree Nature Center, 708-946-2216), Goodenow Road 1 1/4 mile east of the intersection of Illinois Highways 1 and 394 (Calumet Expressway), south of Crete, Oct. 13; or Hammel Woods, Illinois Highway 59 north of U.S. Highway 52, Shorewood, Oct. 20. Walks start at 9 a.m. Will County Forest Preserve District information: 815-727-8700.
All four preserves have popular walks. In addition, Goodenow Grove offers a top-of-a-sledding-hill panorama of its oak trees. Best fall color show here is usually mid-October.
“To judge when to go, watch what the trees are doing around your locale, then come out here,” says Will County’s Dave Mauger, land management program coordinator for the Forest Preserve District. ” . . . At Hickory Creek, the LaPorte Road access is best for trees but you can also access the Old Plank Road Trail at Hickory Creek and bike past brilliant red sumacs and amber prairie grasses. . . . You have a mix at Hammel Woods: a lot of oaks, some maples, basswoods. Late in the fall on a sunny day, the woods are kind of glowing. It’s a pretty neat thing to see.”
In the southwestern suburbs, walk through the fall splendor that surrounds the Forest Preserve District of Cook County’s Little Red School House Nature Center, 9800 S.104th Ave., a half-mile south of 95th Street, Willow Springs, 708-839-6897. North siders have the Forest Preserves’ River Trail Nature Center in the heart of its popular Allison Woods on the Northfield-Wheeling border. Access is the west side of Milwaukee Avenue (Illinois Highway 21) three-quarters of a mile southeast of River Road, Northbrook, 847-824-8360. Forest preserve trail hours through October are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and to 5:30 p.m. weekends. All nature center hours are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays (closed Friday), open to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Free admission and parking. The Forest Preserves’ Chicago Botanic Garden is an all-season star on the county’s northern edge, 1000 Lake-Cook Rd., a half-mile east of the Edens Expressway, Glencoe, 847-835-5440, 8 a.m.-sunset. It’s managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society. Admission is free, parking is $7.75 per non-member car. To find a local Cook County Forest Preserve property, call 1-800-870-3666 or 708-771-1180.
Hikers at the Little Red School House Nature Center are rewarded with naturalists on site in an 1886 schoolhouse and oaks, hickories and maples along self-guided trails. The Chicago Botanic Garden’s 385 acres of plants and trees make it a place to stop in any season.
The second week of October is generally prime color time at the River Trail Nature Center, according to naturalist Sue Holt. The second week in October is also when maples and ashes “express a lot of fall color” at the Botanic Garden, says curator Peter Bristol. “This is also the perfect place for homeowners to visit when looking for something for their yard. They can pick up ideas this fall and mark them down to buy next spring,” he says.
Start at the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s Fullersburg Woods, Spring Road a half-mile north of York Road, Oak Brook, to get information at the Environmental Education Center and hike its trails. The center is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily; 630-850-8110. Among other popular Forest Preserve District properties for fall color are Maple Grove, 55th Street and Maple Avenue, Downers Grove; Meacham Grove, Bloomingdale Road a quarter mile north of U.S. Highway 20, Bloomingdale; Herrick Lake, Herrick Lake Road, on the south side of Butterfield Road (Illinois Highway 56), near Wheaton; and Waterfall Glen, Southgate Road and Cass Avenue, on the east side of Interstate Highway 55, south of Darien. DuPage forest preserves open an hour after sunrise and close an hour after sunset. 630-790-4900.
Maples welcome visitors at the entrance to Fullersburg Woods, a mixed forested area dominated by oaks with some ash trees. Maples, the fall foliage king, dazzle at Meacham and Maple Groves. The reds, golds and burgundies of oaks and ash paint an Impressionist backdrop at Herrick Lake and Waterfall Glen.
“These are the places people tend to go, but just about any wooded DuPage forest preserve area will have some color. How much depends on the weather pattern each year,” says Tom Pray, supervisor of the Fullersburg Woods Education Center.
Boat or drive along the Fox River, then gather information and enjoy the trails at the Forest Preserve District of Kane County’s Tekakwitha Woods and its Arlene Shoemaker Nature Center, Illinois Highway 25 and Army Trail Road, St. Charles, 847-741-8350, before heading north to Burnridge Forest Preserve, Coombs and Big Timber Roads, Elgin. Or drive in the countryside to Johnson’s Mound, Hughes Road and Illinois Highway 47, Elburn. The Kane County Forest Preserve District’s main number is 630-232-5980. The forest preserves are open 8 a.m. to sunset daily.
Johnson’s Mound glows an intense yellow from extensive stands of sugar maples. Tekakwitha Woods has a mix of hardwoods and a nature center that has fall leaf programs and naturalists. A visit to Burnidge is a two-for-one outing of hardwood trees and restored prairie.
Even though she can rattle off her forest preserves’ hardwood color displays, Valerie DePrez, the Forest Preserve District’s nature program supervisor, says, “People shouldn’t ignore the prairie. Burnidge has spectacular fall color in its woodlands and prairie. You know this is the Prairie State, and settlers wrote glowingly of fall’s purple prairies.”
Two Lake County Forest Preserves, each about 1 1/2 miles from Illinois Highway 22, are popular fall destinations: Daniel Wright Woods, Everett and St. Marys Roads, Mettawa, north of Illinois Highway 22; and Ryerson Woods in the Ryerson Conservation Area, 21950 N. Riverwoods Rd., Deerfield, south of Illinois 22. Ryerson is 847-968-3321. For other Lake County Forest Preserve information, call 847-367-6640. The Lake County forest preserves are open 6:30 a.m. to sunset daily. Ryerson’s Visitors Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. In Chicagoland’s far northwest, about 75 minutes from the Loop, fall hikers are drawn to McHenry County Conservation District’s Coral Woods, Somerset Road at Coral West Road, west of U.S. Highway 20, southeast of Marengo. It’s open from 8 a.m. to sunset. 815-479-5779 or 815-338-6223.
Travelers approaching Daniel Wright Woods from the east on Everett Road are rewarded by a startling fall foliage show of orange and magenta, west of Riverwoods Road. The show continues in Daniel Wright where maples and oaks line a pond and trails along the Des Plaines River. And at Ryerson Woods, color seekers will find the forest preserves’ largest grove of sugar maples. In McHenry County, Coral Woods is known for the maple trees that flame its 400 acres a golden orange and yellow each fall.
“The stretch up Everett from Riverwoods Road to Daniel Wright is short but spectacular,” says Nan Buckardt, Lake County Forest Preserve environmental education manager. “At Daniel Wright, you are among trees. You see leaves with great color around you and on the ground. For a different view, go to Ryerson, where you get a good panorama across the field.”
Head northwest to the Chain O’Lakes State Park, State Park and Spring Grove Roads east of Wilmot Road, Spring Grove. 847-587-5512. Open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
About a 75-minute drive from Chicago, the state park has several trails winding through its 6,000 acres. But for a panoramic view that takes in Grass Lake, the Fox River, prairie and woodlands, drive about a mile into the state park, following signs to the Park Office, and turn left and park. The area south of the office is the highest point in the park.
“Some years the color is spectacular, others it’s just nice,” site superintendent Ed Rodiek says. “You get a really nice panoramic view at the high point and on the trails past open prairie and wetlands, back-dropped by the changing leaves of oak, hickory, sumac and other trees.”
NEARBY ILLINOIS
Drive about 1 1/2 hours southwest to Starved Rock State Park, County Highway 178, Utica (exit No. 81 on Interstate Highway 80, go south 3 miles on Highway 178, follow park signs), 815-667-4906. Open 5 a.m.-10 p.m., Visitors Center 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Or do an overnight in Galena, a four-hour drive northwest of Chicago (Interstate Highway 90 to U.S. Highway 20). 888-8GALENA (842-5362). For fall foliage information call 217-782-2361, tourism call 800-2CONNECT (226-6632).
Spectacular vistas where oaks and hickories splash scarlet, yellow and gold against canyon walls and along the Illinois River attract thousands of visitors to Starved Rock State Park in the fall. Best bet is to go during Fall Colors Weekend, Oct. 20-21. Guided hikes that take people to the highest points and best vistas leave the Visitors Center at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. In the Galena area and surrounding Jo Daviess County, glorious color and canyon views make a drive to Apple River Canyon State Park (north of U.S. 20 near Stockton and Warren) and to Mississippi Palisades State Park (Illinois Highway 84 south of Hanover) worth the trip, but fall color also frames Galena’s well-preserved 19th Century homes and shops.
WISCONSIN
Do an overnight (if you can find accommodations) in Door County, Wis.’s famed vacation peninsula reaching out into Lake Michigan northwest of Green Bay, a four-hour drive north on Interstate Highway 43 and northwest on Wisconsin Highway 42 or Wisconsin Highway 57. Or try the Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive starting near Whitewater; take U.S. Highway 12 north or I-43 north to Wisconsin Highway 20, west to U.S. Highway 12 two miles west of Wisconsin Highway 67, to County Highway H. Wind north on Highway H following “acorn” signs. Admission stickers are required for vehicles entering Wisconsin state parks. 262-594-6200, 800-432-TRIP (8747) or www.wiparks.net. The hike and bike trails through forest, meadows and wetlands of Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek and through the wilderness of Newport State Park in Ellison Bay are worth the trip to Door County in any season. But their foliage envelopes visitors in shimmering gold in the fall. Color often spills down from Canada here before seeping across northern Illinois. A place to stop and view the colorful terrain is Holy Hill, 1,400 feet above sea level, on Wisconsin Highway 167 in Hubertus. Also, the Lake Geneva area usually changes color the same time as northern Illinois, about the first week in October, but makes a nice destination.
MICHIGAN
In mid-October, meander north on the Red Arrow Highway (Business-94) from New Buffalo, past Union Pier, Lakeside and Harbert to Bridgman, stopping at Warren Woods State Park and Warren Dunes State Park, 12032 Red Arrow Hwy., Sawyer, between Harbert and Bridgman. 616-426-4013. For a longer trip, stay overnight in Saugatuck or Holland, first stopping at Van Buren State Park, 23960 Ruggles Rd., South Haven, 616-637-2788, before taking in Mt. Baldy Overlook west of Ottawa Beach Road in Saugatuck, and Saugatuck Dunes State Park, 2215 Ottawa Beach Rd., Holland (north of Saugatuck take BR-31 to 65th Street, then north to 138th Avenue and west to the park. 616-637-2788. For other fall trips, call 888-78-GREAT (4-7328), 800-644-3255 or visit the Web site at www.michigan.org.
Michigan’s west coast, with its dune vegetation, offers another take on fall color. Beech and maples dominate Warren Woods, but the Lake Michigan shoreline, framed by dunes and forest, takes center stage at Warren Dunes State Park. A mix of hardwoods and grasses makes Van Buren State Park a quiet place to stop.
INDIANA
Drive to Rockville on U.S. Highway 41 at U.S. Highway 36 in Parke County, a four-hour trip south of Chicago, to tour the county’s 32 covered bridges. Bridge route maps are available at the Rockville Tourist Center, three blocks east of the square on U.S. 36. 765-569-5226.
Parke County’s stretch of U.S. 36 draws fall color-seekers in the know. Nearby are scenic Raccoon State Park, Sugar Creek, Shades State Park and Turkey Run State Park. But the killer attraction is the county’s 32 covered bridges. Routes start at the Tourist Center in an 1883 railroad depot. The Rockville Indiana Covered Bridge Festival is Oct. 12-21.
For more Indiana destinations call 877-EnjoyIn (365-6946) or check the Web site at www.enjoyindiana.com
