The Infamous Bridge of Forest Glen Preserve
And the backpacking trail that led me to volunteer trailwork
This post is part of my Type 2 Fun series, where I write about the less glamorous side of my outdoor adventures. Not familiar with the concept of Type 2 fun?
It’s fun to swap tales with another hiker about a trail we’ve both been on. Our experience treading the same path (and campsites and outhouses) means we can talk in shorthand, setting up the premise of a story simply with the name of a place instead of a long description. And while some spots are only memorable to an individual, others are seared into the minds of everyone who has hiked through them. In the latter category is the Bullshit Bridge.
That’s not its official name—it has no name that I know of—but if you have hiked the River Ridge Backpack Trail at Forest Glen Preserve, you know exactly which one I mean.1 The bridge spans a seasonal tributary of the Vermilion River, just above a small waterfall, and it is constructed about a dozen feet below the level of the trail so hikers have to scramble down the nearly sheer and actively crumbling side of a ridge and then up a similar one on the other side. It is—pardon my language—absolute bullshit.
Before I get too far into this story, I want to make it clear that I love this backpacking loop and am a repeat visitor.2 In fact, so many people love this trail so much that it is being loved to death. There is not enough funding or staff to keep up with the trail maintenance, let alone think about reroutes that would better align the trail to stand up against the steady creep of erosion. Seeing the deferred maintenance on this trail is what inspired me to get into volunteer trailwork, so this is a story of an eye-opening experience, not one where I disparage the efforts of park staff who are trying their best in an underfunded county parks system.
Part of the reason that Forest Glen Preserve is so special to me is that I went on my first solo backpacking trip there in August 2020. It felt accessible because it was a loop that could be done in an overnight, offered several intertwining trails that gave me options to bail out early, and was a reasonable drive from my Chicago neighborhood. Plus, the topography made me forget that I had just driven through a hundred miles of cornfields.
The name of the trail gives a strong clue about what to expect—rivers and ridges. Some of the water crossings are bridged and others offer the possibility of wet feet, depending on the seasonal flow. The trail also fulfills its promise of ridges. Rarely does the trail follow the ridge line, but there are plenty of ups and downs to enjoy a robust hill workout—even in a part of Illinois that is often written off as flat and boring. And if you stray a short distance from the trail, you can climb an observation tower that gives sweeping views of the surrounding countryside or wander down to the bank of the Vermilion River for a snack break.
I’m making it sound pretty idyllic, so you may be wondering why I’ve categorized this under Type 2 Fun. For that, let’s return to the infamous bridge.
The first time I hiked the River Ridge Backpack Trail—my first ever solo backpacking trip—my pack was stuffed with heavy, unnecessary gear and the humidity of August had caused me to sweat through every layer of clothing. The sun was sinking behind the trees when I turned a bend and the bridge came into view. All of the confidence I had gained in the previous miles crumbled. The slope down to the bridge was steep and uneven, the bridge itself was narrow without any handrails, and I was sure that if I fell I would land on rock and no one would find me until the next morning.
However, turning back to the parking lot would mean even more miles to fit in before dusk, followed by a long car ride home. It would also mean failing to complete my first solo backpacking attempt. In that moment, the bridge felt less like a physical structure and more like a symbol of my competence in the outdoors. If I could cross it, then I belonged out here as a solo adventurer. If I turned back—or worse, fell off—then perhaps I did not.
It didn’t help that I was dehydrated—often a theme when I'm having a tough day on trail—and that I had discovered earlier in the day that my FitBit’s estimate of my distance didn’t line up with the occasional mileage markers. I wasn’t sure whether camp was just on the far side of the ridge or still over a mile away, but I knew I had to keep moving.
After steadying myself with a few deep breaths, I descended the slope to the bridge. Or more accurately, I tentatively took a couple steps before dropping my center of gravity so I could use a hand as an additional contact point with the ground. Stepping out onto the wooden bridge should have been a relief, but I was too focused on not getting the tips of my trekking poles stuck in the gaps between boards, not losing any gear over the edge of the waterfall, and staying upright.
Then when I reached the far side, the true challenge began.
The slope I needed to climb was more than twice my height and the few footholds petered out halfway up where the trail went nearly vertical. My fingers couldn’t find purchase in the eroding dirt and the backwards pull of my heavy pack was stronger than my upper body. The anxious voice in my brain began to worry: Am I really going to be stuck on this bridge? Can I just abandon my pack and hike back to the car without my gear? Every other person who has hiked this trail has managed this—why can’t I?
Tears filled my eyes as failure seemed inevitable, but I kept scrabbling until my fingers grasped a tree root that seemed able to hold my weight, at least momentarily. Summoning every last ounce of energy, I hauled myself and my anchor of a pack onto the high ground and relief washed over me. Relief that I was hiking a loop trail and wouldn’t have to face that bridge on the hike out. Relief that I wouldn’t need to be saved by a ranger and become a cautionary tale for other hikers. And most of all, relief that I had been capable enough to overcome the obstacle all by myself.
When the relief subsided, my thoughts shifted to ponder the design of how the trail approached the bridge. I’d been on muddy and eroded and unpleasant stretches before, but this was the first time that I really wondered, “Why did the trail get built there?” The hike to finish the loop the next morning was gorgeous, but with that question planted in my brain, I started noticing more quirks of the trail, though at that time I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the issues I saw.
It took about two years from that first visit for me to begin my volunteer trailwork journey. Each time I returned to hike at Forest Glen Preserve, I would feel an urge to help improve the trail, but was hampered by my lack of relevant knowledge. The park didn’t have workdays on their calendar where I could learn trail maintenance skills and the volunteer tasks on offer focused on nature education, trash pickup, and reporting downed trees—the kinds of regular commitments that would be hard for me to do while living three hours away. So, I turned my attention to another trail I frequented which had an established volunteer trailwork program. If I couldn’t help the River Ridge Backpack Trail, then at least I could help somewhere and maybe even grow my skills enough to return to Forest Glen Preserve as a volunteer in the future.
It’s now been almost four years of volunteering on the Ice Age National Scenic Trail and as I learn more about trailwork and sustainable trail design, the scope of the project at Forest Glen Preserve feels even more overwhelming. How naive I was to think that someone could just hand me a shovel—because at that time I’d never heard of a pick-mattock or McLeod—and I would be able to rehabilitate the gaping holes where the tread had collapsed into the adjoining streambed.
Though I haven’t hiked the River Ridge Backpack Trail recently, it is often on my mind because it is part of the origin story for my now beloved hobby of trailwork. When trails are built well and maintained regularly, the work is nearly invisible to hikers, so I’m grateful to have experienced a trail that opened my eyes to all the effort it takes to look effortless. Turns out that good things can come out of crying alone on a bridge in the middle of the woods!
I made a few hiking friends via Instagram because of photos I posted from Forest Glen Preserve and part of our initial bonding was about this bridge.
The photos in this post span four trips in four seasons between 2020 and 2021, though the photos taken in late March and early December are pretty much indistinguishable from each other.
Loved reading this, Alice! My phone reminded me that it's been one year since we met because of the IAT :)
Thanks for helping me remember some of my first backpacking trips from more than 50 years ago--waking up in the mud after sliding downhill in the night and sleeping through it or pulling a 9x12-foot tarp over like a blanket and nearly suffocating under the weight of 6 inches of snow (growing up in Tucson you don't realize that snow is heavy).