Starved Rock State Park

About this place

Starved Rock State Park is a state park in Illinois characterised by the many canyons across its roughly 1,064 hectares, just south-east of the village of Utica, about 5 km in a straight line from it, on the south bank of the Illinois River. With more than two million visitors a year, it is the state's most visited park. Its landscape was shaped by a huge flood from a melting glacier, the Kankakee Torrent, 14,000 to 19,000 years ago, which exposed canyons of St Peter Sandstone. Before European contact the area was home to the Kaskaskia, who lived in the Grand Village of the Illinois across the river; Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first recorded European explorers, and by 1683 the French had built Fort St Louis on the sandstone butte above the river. Narrow canyons such as French Canyon and Aurora Canyon cut through banded sandstone walls draped in moss and ferns, with seasonal waterfalls after rain and snowmelt. From the top of the Rock and the Eagle Cliff overlook the view takes in the Illinois River and its islands, and in autumn the forests turn red and gold. Visiting is free. The waterfalls are strongest in spring and freeze into ice columns in winter, when bald eagles can be seen over the river. Trails are slippery after rain, so keep to them.