outdoor crawl spots

[Ponch]

Lucky... i havent been to branson in yrs and want to go

[Jetboat]

I hate to say this Jeff, but anything within 50-100 feet of a railroad track is tresspassing and can be pretty dangerous if there were a derailment or track gang working in that area (or a street gang hanging out in that area if it's near Joliet.) Dad has actually had on duty police officers arrested for tresspassing after coming onto railroad propert to harrass him and his work crews, by the next higher police agency (if it's a community, he'd call county or state), it's even a fireable offense for a rail road employee to be on a right of way if they're not supposed to be working there that day.

This is park property/right of way... the place is marked as a trail and has boundry markers and a fence for the tracks. When I say its outside the park, its more that its off on a spur by itself. Its along a part of the I&M trail system. you know me, Im big on not trespassing and checking to make sure its ok to crawl.

[BJoe]

That's what I figured Jeff, just wanted to make sure that we were all clear on this though.

[BJoe]

Lucky... i havent been to branson in yrs and want to go

I stopped at the HobbyTown while I was there and was offered a job if I was going to be moving to the area! Right now, I'm half tempted to do so.

[Mnster]

I went to Branson and stopped at that Hobbytown too, nice people. Brand new shop. Not a whole lot of crawling out there though. I brought the Pede and had fun on the hotels mini put course.

I don't know of any really worthy areas in Illinois. If you guys want to experence real crawling you have to go out of state. Kind of the reason I'm going with scaler events this year. The only areas around my hometown that are deemed fun spots are city parks. Often times city parks have fancy decoration rocks everywhere often used for flood control. But, once you drive natural slickrock nothing no longer compares. We need to setup some kind of comp and camp sometime out of state. Meeting other clubs is what makes the trip the most fun. Already planing Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Utah and Iowa trips this year.

I hit every state park, city park and county park within 2 hours of my house, nothing but grasslands. If there are natural rocks they are way over protected and crowded such as Starved rock. There are few places near me that look like perfect slickrock but the park erected a walking path over it treating the place like its a shrine.

There are rocky parks but the top soil is so thick it covers the rocks all up. So all you see is rocky shear cliffs such as White pines.

Just a FYI when looking for parks.

I've found that 80% of good areas are near lakes and rivers.

99.9% had to do with water is some way. Dam, flood control area, ect.

[Jetboat]

I was realy suprised when I went to Dellwood and found the rock I found... But like you Mnster said, it was part of an impoundment/lake. Years ago they built a lagoon for recreation and in the process cleared all teh dirt from the rocks.. Given the vast majority is sheer cliffs but, several car sized sections have sheered off and tons and tons of smaller basketball sized material has piled up. Im going to try to get some time this Sunday to go back and clear some of the rock and take some better pictures.

[bubbaracing]

Here's a few different angles of the spot down by me under RT-113 just west of Coal City! I think it'll be a great place to have a get together at, not sure about a comp though? LMK what y'all think the one pic has the rain runoff coming down thru the rocks, that might make it interesting!

[BJoe]

Looks cool Matt!