Panther Den Wilderness Hike

This is the first of four trails I hit last weekend as I made a trip down south to see family. It is brought to you in part by Samuel Adams IPA, which I have been drinking all night while writing this. :)

While heading down to see family down south, I decided to stop off at Panther Den Wilderness for a little hike. Panther Den is just south of Marion, IL, off of I-57. It's part of the Shawnee National Forest, a dispersed set of parks in Southern Illinois. I read a review on some blog, and the author gave it a pretty bad review (something like 2.5 stars of 5). I would not go that far. It had some issues, but... Well, let's just get into the hike.

Some sage advice for entering the wilderness.

The adventure begins by exiting I-57. I went quickly from civilization to back country in the blink of an eye. Seems there was a gas station at exit 40, but it's long gone, now. All that's left is the pump shelter. After numerous back roads, turns, and partially washed out gravel roads, I made it to the trail-head. There were 4 other cars when I arrived in a space that can accommodate 7 or 8. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon. I cleaned off my shoes on the obligatory shoe brushes (we don't want to bring in any invasive species, now do we?), then it was off to the hike. I left the Questing Trail-head (lower left point on the map) heading for the Panther Den Loop.

The first section was very nice, but I noticed that the sedimentary rock and limestone on the path was damp, and there were fresh green leaves laying all over the trail. In addition, there were lots of small streams - some no more than a few inches wide, and a half inch deep running across the trail. A storm had obviously passed through within the last day. For the most part, this part of the trail (trail 371 leading up to the loop) was well cared for

I entered the trail just after another couple, and as long as I stayed 100 feet or so behind them, I could not hear or see them. That is the one of the niceties of this trail. The foliage is so dense, you really feel secluded.

I was also struck by how green the forest was. Perhaps it's because we just came out of winter, but the green was amazing.

Sidebar: That said, there was one jackass that seemed to think it was cool to bring his iWhatever music player out with a battery-powered external speaker and play music so the whole forest could hear him. He should have received a medal for achieving heretofore unseen levels of douchbaggery. I'm a music lover. I really am. But if you're going to bring music out to the trails, bring headphones. Seriously, no one wants to hear you're music, and it's bad enough we humans go lumbering through the wild making the noise we do, scaring off the wildlife. We don't need to make it worse by playing music out loud.

I came upon a sign that gave me two options: go straight for the Panther Den loop, or go straight for the River to River trail. I chose straight.

Decisions, decisions. Maybe go straight?

While still easy to follow, there was clearly less maintenance taking place on the trail as I ventured deeper in. I ran across this beautiful example of a fern.

The ferns thrive in this forest.

Ferns are indigenous to the area, and thrive in the dense vegetation and moist environment.

Next I came upon my first stream crossing. The amount of sedimentary rock in the stream beds makes crossing pretty easy; surprisingly so, given that the area just received a good amount of rain. That's where I got my first glimpse of the rock formations.

My first glimpse of the rocky outcrops in the wilderness.

Continuing on, I am faced with a fork in the road. Go left for the River-to-River Trail (actually, a subset of the larger River-toRiver trail going between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers), or right for the Panther Den Loop. Enticing me to go left was the "Rock formations" sign. But, I came here to do the loop, and I figured I would just add a little to the hike by taking the left path on my way back.

At this point, the path quickly deteriorated. The runoff from the storm had turned much of the trail into a stream. Heading north on the upper-right portion of the trail, I was sure I had gone off-trail until I compared my GPS record to the trail map. As it turns out, when I thought I ended up walking some random stream, I was, in fact, on the loop the entire time. The westbound portion at the far north end of the trail was even worse. Much of the trail was overgrown, numerous trees had fallen across the trail, and there was standing water throughout. I started to become pretty discouraged, now, thinking I was just wandering through streams. As I started to head back downhill, I walked through an area where bare rock was the trail, and it was really beautiful to look at. A little further down, and I had the most wonderful surprise.

A welcome surprise after wondering if I'm on trail.

I stumbled right into the rock formations indicated by the earlier sign. These were much larger than what I saw at the stream, and incredibly beautiful. They were eroded by time and rain, covered in moss, and displayed a wonderful set of colors including gray, tan, and orange. It was time to explore in the crevices, a bit.

The crevices were stunning.

Heading into the big crevice, the temperature dropped about 10 - 15 degrees F. Also, the change in sound was overwhelming. The sounds of birds and wind through the trees disappeared, and the silence was overpowering. While ambient noise faded, any sound I made bounced around in a reverb/echo fashion.

The rock formations were beautiful.

Deep in the rock, the air was cooler, the sound of the forest disappeared, and the views were incredible.

While in this crevice, there was a gentle patter of water all around dropping from the tops of the rock cliffs. It felt not unlike rain, but that I could easily evade by just walking back under a cliff.

Another awe-inspiring crevice.

The trail now tracked along the rock-faces, presenting serene views of mossy rock in the forest. This, to me is amazing. I come from Northern Indiana, generally referred to as the "Heartland of America" (code for flat and boring as hell). Seeing rock just popping up like this is a real treat for me. What's especially interesting is that just 20 miles north, the terrain was all generally flat and farm land. Here, at the very start of the hills in the south was such a gem.

I hit a number of stream crossings, and came across horseshoe marks on the trail. My first big stream crossing was fun - I ended up crossing over a fallen tree.

Stream crossings were frequent, but this one was too wide to try to jump. Fortunately, some fallen trees were available to help.

A little further down, I had another stream crossing that left me with a very wet right shoe (which is now drying on the counter next to the sink in my hotel room). A few hundred feet later, another stream crossing. The plan was simple: pop off the right foot, lay the left foot on the 6" rock in the middle of the stream, then swing the right leg forward to grab the bank. Left shoe now wet.

As I headed further south, I hit a small set of switchbacks going up a small hill. Then I saw signs marking the River to River Trail. and left the 'formal' Panther Den Wilderness.

Looking backward, heading out of the wilderness, proper.

Before long, I was back at the signs in the fork, offering the loop or the rock formations. I was back on the trail I started on, heading back to the trail-head.

7.6 K after the start, I'm back at the trail-head. The only downside of the trail was the lack of blazing. The service's website calls out, explicitly that the trail is well-marked. I would argue that there is some room for improvement. Some additional blazes on the trees would have been really helpful. That said, it probably would not have been as much of an issue, had a storm not just passed through, and left the trails in a poor state. The rock formations really made up for it, though, and left me feeling that I made the right choice stopping by.

 The Panther Den Loop

The Panther Den Loop elevation profile

Statistics

Min Altitude: 161m

Max Altitude: 239m

Cmumulative Climb: 301m

Distance: 7.6 Km

Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Weather: Sunny, wind: n/a, 68-72 deg F.