We decided to start the 2023 hiking season by heading down south for a quick overnight trip, visiting a couple parks near Decatur. The first park of the weekend was Edward R. Madigan State Park in Lincoln, IL. It was a very chilly morning, even snowing as we picked up some morning coffee, but by the time we had driven to the park it had warmed up a little and nothing had stuck to the ground.
The state acquired the land for this park in 1970, and it was originally known as Railsplitter State Park, before being renamed after Edward R. Madigan. Madigan was born in Lincoln, and was eventually elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the park was renamed about a year after his passing.
This park is on the smaller side, at only 974 acres, and the trail options are more limited. We hiked the Salt Creek Loop Trail, which was a 1.9 mile loop that mostly goes through the forest, but also goes along the creek for part of it. Because we went so early in the season, nothing was growing yet and it was pretty muddy out. However, we soon realized that coming this early was the right choice.
One of the most common reviews of this particular trail is that it is very overgrown and difficult to navigate. Even on a day that was so early that it snowed that morning, it was very evident that the plants would have overtaken the trails had we come during the summer. We are both very good at reading maps and knowing directions, but this was the most turned around we have gotten in a park, even without extra plants. It makes us believe that only the most skilled hikers would be able to navigate this park in peak season.
Even despite getting turned around, we still had a very good time. The second most common review is that it is very easy to spot deer in the woods, and it did not disappoint. We managed to see a group of about 7 deer in the distance, which is the most we’ve seen at a single time during any of our hikes so far. There were also a ton of mushrooms growing everywhere, in contrast to lack of plant growth.
After the misadventure of losing the trail and being distracted by the deer, we managed to find the creek and get back on track. Ready to head out of the cold and muddy trails, we finished up the second half of the loop pretty quickly. One other thing to note is that there are signs everywhere along the trail about bordering private property. This is kind of intimidating with how difficult it is to keep on track and with how few actual trail signs there are. We didn’t have any problems while we were out, it just made an already confusing situation even more confusing.
Once we got back to the car and scraped the mud off our shoes, we headed into town to Spirited Republic/Limerick Brewing Company. Right in the middle of downtown Lincoln, this brewery has 40 beer taps available, as well as 8 wine taps. All the beers we tried were pretty good, but Steph especially liked “If you’re not into yoga”, a piña colada cream ale. Afterwards, we got ice cream at Top Hat Creamery, just for fun.
We feel like there is potential for this park, but we could see how the trails could get overgrown to the point that they are unusable. Had it been summer, we probably would have resorted to walking back to the car on the main road. Even at the very tail end of winter when all the trees were still dead, it was extremely difficult to keep track of the trail, and there were times the deer trails were much easier to use. The deer were definitely the highlight of this park though, and we would say to go just for that, but just be very careful to keep to the path as much as possible.
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