I took a morning off recently to get outside in nature. I chose the Chief Shawannassee Trail at the Kankakee River State Park. This trail is the most immersive hike in the state park because it feels more like a deer path than human-designed infrastructure.
I find it to be freeing to the mind as your brush elbows with nature during your hike … you are in it … part of it. The first half the trail runs adjacent to Rock Creek following the contours of the stream bank. If you enjoy trail running, I think this is a fun loop that gives a lot of terrain diversity in a short span. The loop continues into the woods, but there is much to do other than one foot in front of the other.
I took a few minutes to pause along rock creek at a spot where a tree had fallen into the water. Walking along the bank I balanced on the dolomite limestone chunks hoping to get a good look at a turtle or fish in the clear flowing water. It turns out I was being watched also as on the fallen tree crouched a green heron watching my every move. We then watched each other before it disappeared upstream into the sedges.
While there I also observed some blue monkeyflower in bloom along the bank and a robust vine that caught my attention. The vine was draped over a log that by appearance had drifted and settled during spring flooding no doubt. I snapped a picture of the vine and uploaded to INaturalist and quickly identified it as bur-cucumber (sicyos angulatus).
Bur-cucumber is a plant of floodplains. It enjoys the yearly disturbance of flooding and can grow quickly to take up space. Its tendrils can anchor the plant in place on any sort of new debris it might encounter. The leaves (pictured here) do remind me of a garden cucumber plant, but this wild version does not produce a robust edible fruit like those.
While perhaps a distant relative, this plant has very small fruit that has a single seed inside a very prickly husk. Not something I would be looking to digest any time soon. There is another similar plant species — wild cucumber (echinocystis lobata) – that grows in similar conditions, but it is a hairless plant. Bur-cucumber has a very hair stem and under its leaves.
I hope to get back to the Chief Shawannassee Trail again soon as things will be changing to fall. Other than the occasional fisherman, I rarely see many folks on the trail here. A nice spot to clear the mind and observe the world.
