Forty-three Starved Rock Walkers (+2 dogs) Took the East Bluff trail out to LaSalle Canyon and came back along the River Trail. A great December day for a walk in the Park!

 

 Fifteen minutes from the Lodge we enter upper

Wildcat Canyon.

 Here the group is leaving the Wildcat rim boardwalk headed for Sandstone Point.

 Trying to avoid the mud on the rim of Basswood Canyon is always tricky.

 The walkers arriving onto the exposed bedrock at 

Sandstone Point.

 Leaving Sandstone Point.

 A view down the headwall notch to the west wall of Lone Tree Canyon.

 The tree that was part of that stump on the left was cut off the staircase this week. The trunk is on the right and the broken handrails have been replaced with new wood.

 The bottom step of the Sandstone Point staircase is a challenge no matter what direction you encounter it.

 I always use this 2014 derecho gust victim as an example of how deeply rooted the Park's trees are NOT.

 That's a carp boat in the Starved Rock Pool gunning its engine to drive Asian carp into the nets they just put out.

 The confluence of LaSalle Creek and the Illinois River is a good pic in any season.

 None of the newly cut wood from the beaver sign we are now seeing along the River Trail is ending up here on the abandoned lodge in LaSalle Creek.

Yes! We walkers use binder clips for lots of things that 

do not involve paper!

 

Walking the east wall trail into LaSalle Canyon.

The LaSalle Canyon headwall falls are my favorite!

The lower LaSalle Canyon falls and plunge pool.

This walker claims to have been in this canyon some 500 times since April, 2012. Maybe!

Walkers rounding the base of Sandstone Point

on the River Trail.

Climbing the stairs at Eagle Cliff back towards the Lodge.

Even before we finished the heavy morning frost was turning the trail back into mud.

 I have to agree with Paul Dudley White who said,
"A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world."