With its breathtaking natural beauty and unlimited opportunities for outdoor recreation, a trip to Giant City State Park near Carbondale is sure to delight visitors of all ages. From camping and horseback riding to fishing and rappelling, it’s an outdoor lover’s paradise. Giant City State Park is located at 235 Giant City Road in Makanda Illinois. For more information, click here.
Visitors will marvel at the many hiking trails. Especially popular is the Devil’s StandTable Trail, home of huge sandstone bluffs and unique rock formations. The rock formations found on this trail date back more than 12,000 years.
The Devil’s StandTable Trail is a relatively short hiking trail, checking in at just 1/4 of a mile. However don’t let its size fool you. The Devil’s StandTable is a fantastic hike brimming with caves, overhangs, bluffs and some of the strangest rock formations in the Midwest. This epic trail is just around the corner from the Giant City Nature Trail, you can easily do both of them in one afternoon.
The Devil’s Standtable Trail leads to a unique geologic formation that has dominated the bluff line landscape here for thousands of years. Called by many “the mushroom rock,” this large free-standing pillar of sandstone must have seemed more like a pulpit for the devil to many local folks. Their name for it has stuck, and it remains one of the most interesting geologic features of Giant City State Park.
The immense rock shelter overhang formed because the softer sandstone in the lower part of the bluff eroded faster than the iron or permeated upper layers, forming a ledge, giving protection to the areas below. Prehistoric Native Americans used these caves as homes and, evidence of their activities can be found along the drip line of the bluffs. Small pieces of “chert” or “flint,” the byproducts of tool making, washes out of the ground where water drips from the bluff during rainfall.
As a word of warning the Devil’s StandTable Trail is a rugged hike and caution needs to be taken. Be careful-steep cliffs are dangerous and sandstone can be slippery. Please stay on designated trails. Poison ivy exists on this trail. Copperhead snakes (venomous) hibernate in the sandstone bluffs.
Other trails worth visiting are the Giant City Nature Trail, The Trillium Trail, and the Stone Fort Trail. All of these deserve a visit and offer stunning sites within the park.
If your looking for nearby lodging, click here. If you want to find more hidden gems nearby, click here. For the areas best family activities, click here.
