Giant City 2022 Weekend Campout
Giant City
Giant City State Park is located in Makanda Illinois, which is just South of Carbondale. It’s about a 2-hour drive, which is a great distance. The park is far enough away to make it a place that most of our Scouts don’t visit frequently. It’s also close enough to make it an easy weekend camping location.
This weekend’s event was definitely a lot closer than this year’s Summer Camp trip to West Virginia!
There are a number of factors that make this a great destination for our troop. The group camping site is huge and it is limited to use by youth organizations such as ours, which means it is available nearly all year long. There are also a bunch of fun and scenic hiking trails. Additionally, it’s a beautiful park to visit in the Fall as all of the leaves are changing colors.
Over the years, this park has become what is probably the most-frequented park for our troop, a tradition that started many years ago.
Morning Hikes
Our Saturday started off with a breakfast that included cinnamon rolls baked in some of our Dutch Ovens. This is always a great way to start the day!
After breakfast, we headed out for our morning hiking adventures. We first stopped at the Visitor’s Center, conveniently just down the road from the group site. While there, we were able to pick up some maps for some of the hiking trails. They guys also had fun checking out everything they have inside…including some snakes!
The first trail we visited was the Stonefort Trail. This one is pretty short, but it was a good way to get us warmed up and prepared for our next one.
After that, we headed down the radio to the Trillium Trail. We seem to hit this one almost every time we visit the park. It’s a 2-mile trail that is fairly rugged. It includes a lot of elevation changes, including stairs in some locations. It’s also very scenic. The trail goes past massive rock walls and through the trees. At one of its highest points, the trail offers a great view of the locations in the park.
A Break For Lunch
Once we were done with our morning hike, everyone was ready to head back to camp for a break and some lunch.
Before every camping trip, our Scouts plan out their meals. This can range from simple to “very involved”. They love to try new things, and they really enjoy cooking their meals outside. For this trip, they took the simple approach and just chose to have some soup, because they wanted something that didn’t take long to prepare. Given that it was a little cool outside, it ended up being a good choice.
The adult leaders had their own meal plans, which is fairly typical for our troop. This allows the Scouts to take care of their own meals while the adults handle their own. The leaders chose simple “Pizza Pockets” that we made in one of our large cast iron skillets.
While having soup was a fine choice for lunch, it isn’t always the best at satisfying the appetite of teenage boys. Anticipating this, when purchasing supplies for the trip, we brought extra quantities for the adult’s lunch. It was a good thing we did. Nearly all of the Scouts had their lunch as well as some of the adult’s lunch.
A Relaxing Afternoon at Giant City
The Scouts didn’t have a packed schedule for their afternoon plans. They wanted to spend the time relaxing and playing games in the big open areas at the campsite. They also enjoyed exploring the creek that runs through the campsite. Fortunately, our Fall has been fairly dry, so they didn’t come back covered in mud from head to toe.
Later in the afternoon, they decided that they wanted to do another hike. They chose the Indian Creek Trail, which is a convenient short walk up the road from the group site. This is a fairly short hike of less than a mile. It’s also not very challenging from a terrain perspective. However, it was a good fit for a relaxing afternoon.
Dinner at the Lodge
For dinner, we did something that we don’t normally do at other campouts. Instead of making our own meal, the troop treated everyone to an all-you-can-eat chicken dinner at the Giant City Lodge.
As mentioned above, Giant City has been a common destination for our troop for a long time. Having the Saturday Dinner at the Lodge has also been a tradition of the troop, which started many years ago. The meal is always great, and it’s a nice change of pace to have someone else cook our meal for us. So, we do our best to keep the tradition going year after year!
A Mix of New and Familiar
As stated above, this park is a common destination for our troop. However, even though we’ve been here many times, it doesn’t lose its charm. For some of us (especially the adult leaders), it’s a fun and familiar place to visit. Given that we usually have new Scouts join our troop each year, it’s also a first-time trip for some. Regardless of each Scout’s situation, it’s always a good time, and this year was no exception. Due to other conflicts, we unfortunately didn’t have a large group with us this time, but we still had a great time!
