Adventures At Starved Rock

At 24 years old, I felt like i was falling into a rut and couldn't seem to get out of it, i knew i needed something to shake things up. At the beginning of this year I really didn't have any hobbies except getting drunk with my friends between hating my job. One day me and a couple other friends decide to go to Pier Marquette State Park and hike a few trails. This was my first time ever hiking, I instantly fell in love with it. One month later i was headed to northern Illinois to a place id heard of called Starved Rock. I had no idea where i was going or what i was getting myself into, i just knew that i had found something I really wanted to continue doing for a long time.We got to Starved Rock around 8am that morning, the visitors center hadn't even opened yet. We grabbed ourselves a map off the side of the building and hit the trail, hoping for the best. We head straight for what we assumed would be the best place in the park, its name sake, Starved Rock. While it was neat trail and the view was incredible, we had so much more to see. We continued on our way exploring every cannon and overlook we could find, before we knew it we were at the end of the park with about a 5 mile hike back to where i had parked the truck. By the time we got back we had covered nearly 16 miles in one day, that was a little much for this rookie hiker. Since that amazing first day, I have made the trip 1 other time and plan to go back this week to see if i can find some frozen waterfalls. Starved Rock is a hikers dream hidden in northern Illinois.