Starved Rock State Park, Oglesby

This is a good park. However, the visitor center and trails nearby can be very busy on weekends. We had to park in overflow parking and hike in. We had much better luck heading east to the other parking lots away from the main area. Huge rock formations and tons of places to explore. My kids loved it but we saw many frustrated parents trying to us a stroller. If you have someone to lift a stroller up and down stairs, it won’t be bad but overall the park is NOT stroller friendly. Beautiful bluff and great photo ops. There are lots of little places where the trail is not clearly my defined and you can go exploring a little. The staff was great and all the facilities were clean. There is nice restaurant and lodge if you need a bite to eat or place to rest.

We visited Starved Rock December 10 2022. We stayed at Getaway which is about 20 min away for the weekend. Overall, our experience at this state park was excellent. The trails are well maintained even in the late fall. We hiked for about 4 miles seeing the river views and the canyon views over about 2.5 hours. It is difficult to navigate a stroller/wheelchair along most of the trails in this state park so I recommend getting information ahead of time if you need accessibility. The features and varied topography were amazing; we will definitely return here again. About half of the hike we took was along a wooden or paved path. There are a lot of stairs, many more than they explain. Be prepared to go up and own more than 9 flights over the course of your hike. We had mild weather at about 40 degrees overcast with little wind. Its a great time of year to hike if you don't mind cold weather!