April 7, 2018 Hiking Along the I & M Canal

On a chilly but sunny 26 degree morning, I took the dogs for a 3.2 mile hike along the northern end of the Illinois & Michigan Canal Trail.

This section of the trail is named after Chicago Tribune writer, John Husar. Mr. Husar wrote passionately about the outdoors throughout his career with the Tribune.

This 3.2 mile loop trail is in between the original canal built in 1848 and the one currently in use now. It is known as the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. I guess the Shit and Ship Canal was a bit too much for sensitive ears.

This is the canal currently in use...

...from under the Willow Springs Road overpass.

You can still see some of the original stone wall across the canal.

The views are limited along this trail, so I was excited to find these mushrooms growing on this stump.

Nola and Oslo were excited to be outdoors and sniffing new places.

A beautiful blue sky this morning.

Nola smiling with the sun lighting her up.

This funky looking piece of Mother Nature Artwork is a tree trunk that fell over and is hollowed out so you can look through the trunk. There is also that section to the right that is hollowed out too.

Here we are underneath the mile long bridge on I-294.

Not surprisingly, there is graffiti on all the concrete supports for the highway. 

I know the Chicago area has been 15-20 degrees below the average temperatures for the past month, but I was still surprised to see some ice on a stagnant section of the original canal. 

Walking back along the much smaller original I & M Canal. One of the historical signs at the trailhead explained how there were towpaths on both sides of the canal so mule teams could pull the barges along the canal.

So here we are walking along a former towpath.

There were several places the original canal was dammed with debris both natural and man made. But some sections are still open. I saw several blue herons flying along the waterway this morning. So that was exciting to see. But for the most part there wasn't much to see...

...but the history geek in me loved walking along a historic water way that helped make Chicago one of America's greatest cities.