Be a Trailblazer: Hike Hadley Valley

^{|  Story by Meghan McMahon |}

^2/6/2025

Editor’s note: We want you to Be a Trailblazer this year, so we will be hiking at various preserves throughout the year and documenting it for you. Journey along with us as we blaze a trail through the preserves and hopefully encourage you to do the same.

A hike at Hadley Valley is a little bit like walking back in time. The preserve is the site of an award-winning restoration project that returned the land to what it would have been like centuries ago, when much of Illinois’ landscape was dominated by rolling prairies.

The trail, of course, wouldn’t have existed centuries ago, but the creek did, and the flora and fauna you see there today are representative of what lived on the land many moons ago, before the land was taken over by agriculture. On our walk, it wasn’t hard to imagine the prairie extending far beyond the preserve’s borders, with grasses swaying in the breeze as far as the eye can see.

Our walk here was on a fairly typical winter day. It was mostly cloudy with occasional peeks of welcome sunlight, and the wind was whipping across the open expanses. A hat and gloves were definitely a necessity.

We started from Hadley Valley’s Gougar Road Access, from which you can walk a 2.47-mile looped, limestone trail. In the dead of winter, the landscape here is fairly monotone, leaving it to your imagination to picture it at its summer peak, when it is full of colorful prairie blooms and the sounds of birds and insects.

As you might expect on a winter afternoon, we didn’t see much wildlife on our Hadley Valley hike — just a few birds flying overhead. The only other wildlife we saw was a small, dead rodent, likely a mole, squashed on the trail, soon to be a meal for a scavenging animal.

If you keep a purposeful eye out though, you’re likely to see signs that wildlife lives all around the preserve, even if you can’t see the animals themselves. We saw game trails cutting through the tall grasses, probably from deer, coyotes or both. In the few spots with trees dotting the landscape, some nests were visible. And the trail itself was full of signs of animal activity in the form of scat.

Much of the scat we saw was from coyotes. You can distinguish it from other scat because it is tube-shaped with tapered ends, and it’s usually full or hair and fur — remnants of the animal’s recent meals. We also saw horse poop — the Spring Creek Greenway Trail at Hadley Valley is one of a few trails where horseback riding is permitted — and some scat we couldn’t identify. Unfortunately, we also saw some dog poop, leading us to this friendly reminder: We welcome dogs at Hadley Valley, but dog owners are required to keep their dogs on a leash and to clean up after them. In fact, this is true for all of our preserves. Dogs are allowed in all preserves, with the exception of on natural surface trails in nature preserves and at Lake Renwick Heron Rookery Nature Preserve.

The trail at Hadley Valley can be slick in winter after recent snow or rain. In well-tread sections, particularly low parts of the trail or spots that don’t get much sun, the freeze-thaw cycle leaves many areas slippery with uneven ice that is difficult to walk on. In these areas, we found it easier to walk in the grass just to the side of the trail because it was less slick.

As you walk the loop, you’ll cross bridges spanning Spring Creek in two places. At other times of the year, these bridges are a good place to stop for a few moments to see what wildlife you might see in the water below. They are still worth slowing down for in winter. While there might not be any signs of wildlife nearby in winter months, the creek is far from quiet, creating a babbling sound that might remind you of soothing white noise.

 

Along the trail you’ll also find a few benches flanked by interpretive signs that point out the flora and fauna of the preserve as well as some of the impressive details about the extensive habitat restoration. These spots are a good place to rest for a few minutes if you need to or to simply take a little time to learn more about the landscape before you.

Our hike here was a leisurely one. We could have quickened our pace a bit and worked up a sweat, but we took some time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. We found the full loop to be a good winter hike, but anyone up for a longer exploration can take the Spring Creek Greenway Trail connection that crosses Gougar Road and heads toward the preserve’s access on Bruce Road. A 1.19-mile segment will take you to Interstate 355, and you can continue on for another 1.11 miles to reach the Bruce Road Access.

The trail here does include some elevation changes. If you start from Gougar Road Access and head south, you’ll begin your hike with the steepest hill heading downward. If you start heading the other direction, that upward hill is at the end of the hike. There’s another elevation change near where the preserve runs along Farrell Road, but it isn’t as steep.

For parents hiking with young kids, this can be a long walk for little legs on a blustery winter day. If your little ones aren’t yet trail troopers, you might want to shorten your walk. From both the Gougar Road and Route 6 access areas, you can walk until you reach a bridge spanning the creek and make that a turnaround point for a more manageable hike. From the Route 6 Access, start your walk by heading west. At Gougar Road Access, start your walk heading south. If you opt for this hike, note that the return trip will include a long portion that is uphill.

And a final note for parents and the well-hydrated among us: Latrines are located near the parking area at the Gougar Road Access.

_{(Lead image by Chad Merda)}