I’ve missed some Friday posts for a variety of reasons, but one was that I was traveling two weeks ago. One stop was to a well-hidden nature preserve in southwestern Illinois with a secret.
Driving through farm fields not far from the Mississippi, GPS tells me to turn into a hidden parking lot where there’s finally a sign to acknowledge I’m in a state protected nature preserve. While it warns of 24 hour surveillance, there are no clues of the treasures down the trail. Soon the trail turns up other rewards of plenty, flavorful blackberries to enjoy while heading down into the ravine.
Some cairns mark where to cross the creek and where to look up to the cliff on the other side.
You might have read my recent stories on the Tuesday Travel blog page of my encounters with ancestral Puebloan rock art in the Southwest. A little searching reveled a collection of 150 pictographs and petroglyphs along a cliff panel that are the largest remaining collection of rock art in Illinois.
The images of curved or geometric lines, deer, birds, anthromorphs and other objects date from the Late Woodland (450-00 C.E.) and Mississippian periods (900-1550 C.E.) I was surprised that even in this more humid climate than the Southwest, the images were still in good shape.
Some well-intentioned, but misguided viewers have sought to enhance some of the images with recarving or chalking, but that is not nearly as disturbing as the vast number of others who have carved their own names or images near, or even more disturbingly on top of the images. However, the images retain their power and speak across the centuries despite the disturbance around them.
Next to the cliff lies a large boulder with many images incised into it. Many are covered by lichen and moss. The area was apparently a popular picnic spot and Sunday school outing place in the late 19th and early 20th century, and those folks left their marks. One would hope such invasions were in the past, but a bold name was carved with a date from June 2022.
Time to cross back over the creek, and leave hoping the treasures can survive.
