Back in July, I was asked if I would contribute an article on the Fox River Trail (FRT) to a new startup magazine called “Way of the Wilds“.  Well, with the FRT being one of my favorite trails in the area and haven ridden the FRT and connecting McHenry County Prairie Trails many times, that was an easy decision.

Way of the Wilds, Autumn 2010

The Autum issue of the magazine has been published and our article (Kerry Leigh, one of the magazine publishers, co-wrote the article with me) is on page 9 of the first issue.

I have found the magazine to be very interesting and informative with a nature and preservation theme and excellent photos. So naturally, bike trail articles are a very good fit. For me, one of the best ways to get outdoors and enjoy nature is to take a long bike ride, preferably one of the many bike trails in our area that weave through our parks, forest preserves and open fields and prairies.

I don’t know if there is a central force driving the bike trail development and improvement efforts but I have found that there have been quite a few new bike trails and extensions to existing trails over the last few years. This is an excellent gift for us cyclists (and nature lovers)!

The FRT bike article in Way of the Wilds focused on the stretch between Geneva and Algonquin which is one of the nicer parts of the trail but even after you’ve explored this part of the trail and are ready for something new there is still a lot more to the FRT and the entire connecting McHenry County Prairie Trail and the original rails-to-trails path the Illinois Prairie Path.

A side benefit of contributing the FRT article to this magazine was that I was invited to Bill Kurtis’s house (the CBS news person) for a kick off meeting for the magazine. I met Bill Kurtis and toured some of his land (in Mettawa, Il) on this little electric trolley/golf cart thing. Bill is actually very much into nature and preservation and is working hard to restore a large part of his land to it’s natural state.

Now, if he would just open up a bike trail through it (and connect it to the Des Plaines River Trail which is very close by) that would really be a nice enhancement! 🙂