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natural chicago
Guided Nature Hikes Offer a Sneak-Peek at Spring
Photo credit Steven D. Bailey
by Sheryl DeVore
48
Chicago Chicago
NAChicago.com NAChicago.com
iking on our own in the many natural areas across the Chicago region can be rewarding and provide outdoor exercise. In the spring, naturalist-led hikes offer an extra dose of knowledge and discovery. As the natural world re-awakens in April, local forest preserves offer guided hikes for the public to witness the signs of a new season and get some exercise. “It’s the budding wildflower, the call of a nuthatch or a little hole in a tree where an insect burrowed to lay its eggs,” says Nan Buckardt about naturalist-led experiences at the Lake County Forest Preserve District (lcfpd.org), where she serves as director of education. “The advantage to these hikes is that you get great physical rewards, as well as mental exercise and knowledge from experts,” she explains. “Your body responds so positively to being in nature that without you knowing it, you produce hormones that make you calmer and enhance awareness.” Forest preserve districts in recent years have added fitness hikes to program rosters. For example, the Forest Preserve District of Will County (ReconnectWithNature.org) offers a five-mile fitness hike in April and the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County (DuPageForest.org) hosts three-to-five-mile hikes in their preserves. The Forest Preserves of Cook County (fpdcc.org) offer fitness hikes, as well. “Some of them are designed to get your heart beating, but then also to learn or appreciate something in nature,” says Brian Winters, a Forest Preserves of Cook County naturalist at River Trail Nature Center, in Northbrook. Even on the active fitness walk where a specific pace is set, Winters stops to point out something interesting. At River Trail Nature Center, that something interesting is a 300-year-old bur oak tree, one of the oldest in the preserve. “I like to use that real, living, thing to reflect on the history of people being in the region, right by the river, which has its own history,” Winters says. “This kind of hike has a fitness component, and it still has the interpretive component.” More leisurely walks with naturalists to search for signs of spring abound in April. “One of the things we like to do on naturalist-led hikes is to have people slow down,” Buckardt says. They may search for buds on trees or listen to birds singing or notice the fresh green leaves of spring leeks on the forest floor. “Slowly walking with a naturalist provides that understanding of the habitat and that ecosystem, what plants are there, how do you look at this little trodden path and know it’s a deer trail?” she says. “It is a little bit of serendipity, in that you don’t know what you’re going to find until you look. When they discover something, they experience wonderment,” and that will often prompt a nature story from an adult or child. Winters agrees. “Everybody has a story about nature that they’re dying to share,” he says, recalling the time when visitors were looking at fox scat and began talking about the fox that comes to their yard. People come to the same spring hikes ever year at some of the preserves. “Our wildflower walks, people attend again and again and again. Sometimes flowers are in bloom for such a short LEFT: Guided nature hikes are led through spring woods in April.
