Return to the I&M Canal Trail

For our eighth group cycling event of the summer we returned to the ever-popular I&M Canal Trail this past Sunday afternoon.  After many months we were happy to see our friend Doug again, and hope he can join us some more this summer.  Riding along with Doug were Jason, Tim, and me.  Starting from Empress Road we traveled to McKinley Woods and back, about 20 miles.  And while the weather earlier that afternoon was pretty scary again, especially up in DuPage and Cook counties, by the time of our ride it was perfectly sunny and much cooler than in previous days.  Perfect weather for biking!

By the way, for those paying really close attention, the Empress Road to McKinley Woods ride is normally only a 19-mile round trip.  On this day, however, we took a couple of brief detours.  One was to check out the Subway store at Eames and Canal in Channahon, site of our second planned stop during our upcoming trip to Utica.  We wanted to make sure it is actually going to be open at the time we plan to arrive on Friday, and were glad to see it is.  The second detour was to explore an island (or sort-of island) park area where Tim likes to bring his kids.  There is a nice walking/biking path plus some picnic shelters, so we may have to make a return trip sometime.

Part of the reason for visiting the trail on Sunday was to check for damage from the recent storms, especially those from last Friday night.  We weren't sure what we might find laying across the path.  Luckily there were mainly just twigs and small branches, and lots of leaves, but nothing too bad.  We did, however, find one section of the trail where a tree had fallen and was blocking the path.  Being four big strong guys (ha!) we decided it was our job to push it aside.  Fortunately it was not a large tree, so I was able to supervise while the others worked.

As it turns out, once the tree was pushed aside and we looked at the stump, we discovered it didn't fall because of the storm, but from a beaver.  This was not a well-executed tree-fall on the part of the beaver, because the tree came nowhere near to hitting the water.  I wonder if poor planning is common for beavers along the I&M Canal, because I often notice trees that are chewed to fall away from the water.

The trip log is posted below.  Was this really the first time we had started at Empress Road this year?  Normally that is one of our favorite starting spots, so maybe we will have to visit it more often during the second half of the summer.