River-to-River Trail, IL

I had always wanted to try out southern Illinois' River-to-River Trail.  So a group of four of us set out on a 3 day trip from Garden of the Gods to Lusk Creek.  We actually traversed this section twice, doing an in-and-out of 35 miles or so. Unfortunately I forgot the camera, so these phone photos will have to do.

 It was a bit grey when we started near One Horse Gap, which turned into a beautiful fall day.

The trail followed old National Forest roads such as this one at a few points, but we didn't mind the road-walking as they were all beautiful.

Here's my buddy's tent at our campsite the first night.  We had a great spot overlooking the Garden of the Gods Wilderness area.

 You can actually drive to the Garden of the Gods area, but we chose to hike 16 miles to get there instead.

We spent a fair amount of time there relaxing on the rocks.  As the sun began to set, we reluctantly booked it back to our campsite a couple miles away.

 They called me the Fire Master.  We stayed warm.

The trail had a lot of rock formations along the way.  I enjoyed the area and wouldn't mind coming back to hike the other 125 miles of the 170 mile trail.