The Chief Illini Trail (including the Little Illini Trail on the south end) is 11.3 miles along Lake Shelbyville, and the FKT is set up as an out-and-back. Seems pretty straightforward. John came out to provide water and Spiz in 3 places so I carried only the InReach tracker, camera, phone, and a hand bottle. Thanks for the help, John!
We showed up at the north end of the trail and John noticed some grass leaning over onto the path. He suggested I might have wanted orienteering pants. It turns out he was right, but not because of that grass! That was the "highway" part of the route.
But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the northern terminus:
John's eye view of the same shot:
And she's off! Blazing speed through the field...
The trail T'd into another mowed path and it was pretty obvious I should turn left (south) but I made a big point to note exactly where that was for the way back since it was unmarked.
A little trail took off into the woods, but it was also unmarked. But it went south. I tentatively followed it for a few steps, fought through a couple spiderwebs, and decided that probably wasn't right. Back to the path along the edge of the field, and soon I found the white blaze I was looking for:
And the actual turn onto the path in the woods, with a large sign. Very obvious in the southerly direction. Going north, when you hit this spot, turn left:
The rest of the trail was mostly well marked at intersections. Not to say you couldn't mess it up (it's easily possible, although I managed OK in this regard). Or that it was well marked when NOT at intersections. But again, getting ahead of myself.
Mile markers, nice! Every half mile, and very helpful for tracking my pace.
A closer look at that mile marker - see the large spider and the wide web? Yep, there were spiders and webs. Lots and lots of them. Soon I was running blindly through them every few steps. Crap, this might not be so much fun. It didn't take long to select a stick to wave in front of me to try to take them down before the rest of my body arrived.
The bridge that is out between MP 10.0 and 9.5 - with just enough of it close to the south bank that I could jump across and not get my feet wet:
MP 9 and a decent example of the trail. It's not highly trod and sometimes rather hard to follow. There are white blazes on the trees at reasonable intervals. At least most of the time. Notably, this is the last picture I took "just because" on the way south, because...
... because anytime I wanted to work on anything (remove spider thread from my face, pick off a sticker burr, itch my nose) I had to completely stop. Otherwise I'd walk into another large spiderweb and spend the next minute thrashing around trying to extricate myself from the web and potentially large spider. It was just better to stop completely!
Plus I needed one hand for my bottle and the other for my spiderweb stick. So I didn't take many photos on the way south. I figured it might be better on the way back, I hoped? Surely the spiders can't rebuild giant webs that quickly.
Side note - those sunglasses had to be stashed so I didn't accidentally fling them into the bushes when I spotted a spider crawling along my hat brim.
I traded out the small spider stick for an upgrade - much better. It was longer and multi-pronged, both key attributes in spiderweb removal. Now I just had to concentrate to keep the stick in the air ahead of me and not let down my guard for a single second. Good arm training.
So I was doing halfway OK mentally when I ran into the real problem of this route. Between MP 7.5 and 7.0 the trail inexplicably turns away from the lake, climbs a small rise, and sets you in the middle of a mess of head-high grassy vegetation. Not only that, but it's infested with sticker vines. I'm not sure exactly what to call them. Tiny little stickers, with the one saving grace that they mostly aren't pokey-painful.
Except when they bunch up your sleeves and shorts and you can't help but rub your arms and legs on them as you run. I had to stop several times to pick off the ones stuck in the worst places like under my arms. I wasn't sure if my clothes might be all balled up into a wad by the end of the run...
And then, insult to injury (which, come to think of it, is an odd phrase. I was neither insulted nor injured. Just pretty damn annoyed), I ran through some stinging nettle. Ouch! Ow, ow, ow. A lot of plants up to the spot had LOOKED like nettle but in only one spot was I actually stung. In the creek bed between the vegetation mess and MP 7.0. So be aware of that!
Happily the stinging went away within a few minutes and that was the only location that it happened. I say "happily" but I wasn't really in that particular mood at that particular moment. This is stupid. That was really how I felt.
It did cross my mind that I didn't HAVE to do this. Spiderwebs, stickers, maybe more nettle. On the other hand, there's always an "on the other hand". It wasn't that long of a run. I was slowly picking off the worst-offending stickers from my clothes. The trail was mostly pretty decent and runnable. The biggest thing was that I had already cleared several miles of spiderwebs and it sure would be nice to come back through an open trail later.
One thing that tends to work for me is to stop looking at my watch and shorten up my focus. One more half mile. OK, that was something. Now another. That wasn't bad. I've made it this far.
Mental training, everything counts. Wait, where's the trail? Wandering for a minute, OK, there's another white blaze.
Hey look, a person! It was John, and he had cleared a short section of trail for me, yay! We ran south toward Mahoney Road:
At my first pit stop, with my trusty spider stick:
Does anyone know what these sticker vines are called? I kept them so John could take a picture...
Only 5.5 more miles of spiderwebs to clear, 5.5 miles of spiders! Take one down, wave it around, 5.5 miles of spiders to clear.
Hey, it's a turtle! Hello turtle! This was totally worth stopping to take a picture:
I already had the camera out so I took a picture to show how the trail isn't always obvious, but there are a reasonable number of white blazes on the trees (most of the time):
The most challenging nav parts were crossing the drainage bottoms and trying to figure out where the trail went up on the other side. Straight ahead? To the left by the lake? To the right further up the drainage? More often than not it was a mystery that needed solving. Then I'd figure it out and be on my way again.
Through some less-than-awesome trail, then I reached a small road with a sign pointing left toward a shelter. Hmm, maybe that way? Seems like a good time to check the map. Ah ha, no, I needed to go right.
Back on track, I found the parking lot at the end of the Little Illini Trail. And our truck, cool! Wait, our truck isn't supposed to be there. Well, maybe John is planning a longer trek or something. I left my spider stick in case I didn't actually need it anymore - I can dream, at least.
The bridge that is out at MP 2.5 - yeah, this one is definitely impassible. There was no water in the bottom of the giant ditch, so the bypass was straightforward:
Half a mile later I came upon John. Hi John! I sure had been enjoying the web-free trail for a little while. He stared at me like he totally didn't understand what he was seeing. Apparently he didn't realize exactly where he had parked, thought he was starting from the end of the trail, and expected me to come from the other direction.
We sorted that out and he took off back to the truck to try to beat me to the actual end of the trail at Lone Point. I really wasn't worried. I still had plenty of webs to clear along the way. I guess I better find another stick...
Not far after that I came upon a confusing spot. There were white blazes in 3 directions - behind me, straight ahead, and to the left down toward the lake. Hmm, the map was no help this time. I tried the straight ahead option first, but the trail slowly got more overgrown. OK, back to that spot. Yep, the trail down into the drainage was the right one. Moving on.
Down into a drainage, back up, down again, back up. This section sure has its share of elevation gain, in small doses.
Hello again, John! He had easily made it to meet me at the turnaround, even coming up the trail a ways again.
Running with stick!
One more drainage and then there was the far end of the trail. Yay! I survived all the massive webs. Maybe they haven't all been rebuilt in the time it will take to return to them.
Spiz, water, a couple Dot's pretzels (newly discovered this summer, and usually the bag is a lot bigger than this, looks like we need to find some more):
Lone Point trailhead:
It should only get better from here, I hope. I thanked John and ran off again, yelling "negative splits, baby!"
Finally without a spider stick, I was able to take several more photos on the way back. An occasional view of Lake Shelbyville:
Fun steps up the hill:
The confusing 3-way intersection, with an arrow on the tree that I'm just now seeing! Yes, go that way:
The end of the Little Illini Trail at around mile 2.7:
The continuation of Chief Illini Trail:
The turn off the little road back onto the trail (the road leads to the shelter I mentioned earlier):
Some of the less-clear parts of the trail, pushing through a bit of brush:
A gingerbread man - ? And yes, that is still the trail behind him:
It's really only fair that I also show a nice section of trail - some of it is quite lovely!
One of several excellent bridges:
Another view of the lake:
Somewhere along here I crossed a small inlet just a bit too sharply. I could see where I needed to go, as for once I remembered the nav challenge with this particular drainage crossing. So I aimed right for it. And promptly stepped ankle deep in mud. With both shoes. Argh. Sure, why not! Just one more thing!
Interesting mushrooms, one of many different kinds we saw:
Hello, John! One last pit stop back at Mahoney Road:
John had found a good place to practice flying the drone (and it doesn't seem to have acquired too many webs):
Well, only one section left, including my very least favorite half mile. Gotta get it over with.
MP 7, where the "fun" begins:
Down in the creek bed where the nasty nettle lives - I would have loved to have been wearing orienteering pants, if only for this one spot:
Especially since I'd forgotten the exact location and I ran right through it again. Damn it! Ow, ow, ow, ow. A couple minutes of pain.
Something to distract from the fact that I was about to need to push through this - someone really needs to take a scythe to it!
Covered (again) in sticker vines, recovering from the nettles, trying to be grateful for the lack of large spiderwebs at least...
My pace was still not remarkable, and this section didn't help at all. I picked off the worst of the stickers and tried to get back to the business of actually running.
Snake!! Wow, that's something different. This guy stared at me while I stopped in my tracks and stared at it:
Plenty of time for a couple photos, thank you snake for not moving (either away from or toward me). Then I backed up a bit and it took the opportunity to slither away. Far, far away.
Last couple miles, one large step onto the down bridge, a few spiderwebs in the process of getting rebuilt... I waved a small stick around through the last creek bed traverse to clear out the biggest strands.
Finally back to the field, and with a husband accompaniment:
And over to the finish marker. Phew.
I am SO glad that's over!
John receiving my InReach "Done!" message on his phone:
What else can I say? There's a lot of potential for this trail...
Now let's find some water! John had noticed an RV dump station so we drove over and found the water sprayer. Yay! After removing most of my clothes, I rinsed off all the crap. Stickers covered in webs, just lovely. I ended up throwing away the shirt and shorts. But at least I felt so much better - back to normal!
Thank you Chief Illini - I think?
The FKT page for this route:
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