Kickapoo State Recreation Area

Our 2024 hiking season started with Kickapoo State Recreation Area, located in Oakwood, IL. This is about 2 hours and 45 min south of Chicago, or half an hour east of Champaign. We knew that this hiking season was going to be a little shorter, due to the cicadas around the state, as well as being very busy for the entire summer with other engagements. So we took the opportunity in early April to go to our 52nd park.

The area surrounding the park was home to the Kickapoo, centered around the Middle Fork and Salt Fork rivers. In 1819, salt springs were discovered, which drew Europeans to settle here. The salt works operated until 1848, at which point the industry shifted to focus more on surface mining for coal. Kickapoo SRA as it is today was partially influenced by the spoil piles and mine pits left behind from this history of mining.

It’s always been a little tricky for us to figure out when the best time is to start hiking each year. We don’t want to start too early, not just because we don’t want to hike in the cold, but because things may not have started blooming, and we may only get barren trees to look at. On the other hand, sometimes a park might benefit from us going before everything starts blooming, if we know about trail overgrowth in advance. Starting in April this year was mostly due to a string of bad weather, but it fortunately ended up working out very well.

We managed to get out to the park on the first really nice day of the year. We hiked the River View Trail, a 3 mile loop that winds through the forest with water views throughout. Going in the spring when everything was just starting to bloom allowed us to have even better views of water, as well as the clear blue sky, without everything being completely bare from the winter. Most of our hikes thus far have been in the summer months, but after getting to see Kickapoo SRA we are looking to do much more in the spring.

This park is beautiful. This park is also very popular. We did not see too many people on the trail with us, but there were many people fishing and generally enjoying the various ponds. It is very clear that Kickapoo is well loved and maintained, and we had such a good time hiking here. It’s hard to imagine this area used to be surface mined, with how forested it is now. The trail does have more elevation changes than we’d expected and would not be very good for a person with mobility issues, but there are many other areas that are more accessible and just as beautiful.

After finishing up at the park, we went to Sleepy Creek Vineyards in Fairmount. It was such a nice day that we took our wine outside. There is a small pond next to the grapevines, and several cats roam around the property. We definitely recommend heading here if you are in the Champaign area.

Kickapoo SRA, like most state recreation areas, is definitely worth coming too. The amount of activities available, paired with the size of the park and the natural beauty of the reclaimed land made it one of our favorites so far. While we visited in early spring and highly recommend it during that time, we imagine this would be an excellent park to come to in any season. Even though there were a lot of people there the day we went, it never felt crowded or overwhelming like some other parks sometimes do. Overall, an excellent park to start our 4th hiking season with.