Shawnee National Forest

This is a very nice area to camp. It's not overly busy at night. Restrooms, well they have them🫣. Well pumps are available throughout. We camped at the Redbud campground in Belle Smith Springs.

LOVE Shawnee National Forest! Beautiful hiking areas... Garden of Gods is a short, popular hike. Fall colors are slowly starting to come in.

Come for the Garden of the Gods, stay for the wondrous hiking. If you drive 4.5 hours to see the Garden of the Gods, you also have to spend time hiking the actual forest it’s in. That’s what Emily and I did after taking in the breathtaking views at the Gardens. We kind of went into this blindly with just a map of the area. We backtracked a bit to this area that may have been something called Backpacker’s Hike or something like that. Pictures say it was the Indian Point Trail. Anyways, we parked next to a few other cars and headed out to hike. I don’t need to explain hiking but I will go over a few fun things we saw. There were more cliffs to enjoy but the views were just a bit less than stellar compared to the Gardens. Still great though. We saw a lot of places where people must’ve camped or hung out at night cause there were fire pits everywhere. We deviated from the path cause we were looking to hike as much as possible and ended up getting dead-ended about 4 times. While we were limited to this area of Shawnee, I would say we got a pretty good taste of what it offers. We got to see so many beautiful viewpoints and took plenty of great photos. I know this is just scraping the surface of what Shawnee National Forest offers and maybe some day I can go back and see all the other landmarks that this place is known for. Enjoy nature. It’s a thing of beauty.

You're going to need some time to take in all this location has to offer. Beautiful and tranquil surroundings filled with willdlife, streams, wildflowers and walking trails. Very well kept and camping services in the area. This is a definite must see on a weekend getaway!

if someone offers you a hand to get up onto the other rocks, just take it. if someone warns you about how smelly the third stall on the right is unbearable, heed the warning. if you see a cool lichen, take a picture and share it with your friends.

Great park with great views, great fresh air, and great trails.

Thru-hiked the River to River trail in November and experienced all that the Shawnee National Forest had to offer. One of the best aspects of the area is it's diverse scenery, which kept the 157 mile journey interesting.

What a stunning area for viewing and taking pictures! I'm a travel photographer for couples & I had an engagement session here in the forest. The whole forest is covered with beautiful, natural rock formations that make for wonderful backdrops. It looks so gorgeous you wouldn't even know it's in Illinois!