Camping at Giant City State Park

For our latest camping adventure, we headed to Giant City State Park, near Carbondale IL.

While we try to camp at new locations as much as we can, there are several places that are a “given” when it comes to our annual schedule. Giant City State Park is one of those places. We usually manage to camp there at least once a year.

For our September event, we headed to Giant City State Park for our weekend camping event. Late Summer and/or Fall is a great time for a trip like this with respect to the weather. The days are warm, the nights are cool, and the humidity is…well…tolerable.

The park has a campsite designated for youth groups such as ours. It’s a great site… It is located close to the visitor’s center, inside the park. There’s plenty of space, and it’s isolated enough to make it feel as if we’re away from civilization. At the same time, it’s very close to many of the amenities the park has to offer.

We arrived on Friday… It was pretty late in the day, so that evening focused on getting things set up for the night.

Saturday morning started with breakfast. We’re still recovering from our lengthy COVID break from camping. As a result, the Scouts have regressed a bit on their cooking skills. They struggled a bit at first, but they eventually made it work. Pancakes can (fortunately) be very forgiving!

Giant City has a number of great hiking trails. We managed to explore 3 of them on Saturday. The first was focused on learning about how to identify trees. For the other 2, they just enjoyed the beautiful weather and each other’s company as they hiked through the park.

The troop has a long-standing tradition… Whenever we camp at Giant City, we treat the troop to an all-you-can-eat chicken dinner at the park’s lodge. Needless to say, no one left hungry!