How this picture was made
Photorealistic landscape photograph at golden hour in the hills of southern Illinois: weathered honey-colored sandstone rock outcrops and bluffs rising from a dense hardwood forest of oak and hickory, layered wooded ridges receding to a hazy horizon, warm low sun and long shadows, no people, no buildings, no signs. 35mm lens, natural color, faint film grain.
Shawnee National Forest
Camp here — Shawnee National Forest
26 camps mapped in this forest, 4 of them free. Tap one for its topo and aerial, the weather, the water, and how far you will be from fuel and a shower.
- FreePope County
- FreeLake Of Egypt - Buck Ridge
- FreeTower Rock Cg
- FreeJohnson Creek - Primitive
- UnpricedTurkey Bayou Campground
- UnpricedPine Hills Campground
- FeeTrail of Tears State Forest - Campsite 4
- FeeOak Point - Lake Glendale
Where dispersed camping is listed — Shawnee National Forest
The Forest Service lists dispersed camping as an activity at these 14 places. That is the agency saying it is allowed somewhere in the area — not a campsite we have mapped, and not a spot we can put a pin on. Read their page, then check the district for the rules that apply on the day.
- Cedar Lake
The shores of this 1,750-acre lake is lined with forests and colorful bluffs. National forest land encompasses the south end of the lake and provides one of the most tranquil water settings in the Shawnee National Forest. The…
the Forest Service page for it → - Clear Springs Wilderness
Located on the west side of the Shawnee National Forest, Clear Springs Wilderness is one of the largest designated wildernesses in Illinois. With elevations ranging from 400 feet to over 900 feet, the Wilderness is generally…
the Forest Service page for it → - Dutchman Lake
This 118 acre lake is not far from main highways and the small town of Vienna, IL. where stores and gas stations are available for food, gas and live bait. Dutchman Lake is also easily accessible from exit 14 on Interstate 24.…
the Forest Service page for it → - Garden of the Gods Recreation Area
One of the most photographed locations in the state, Garden of the Gods' scenic beauty is extraordinary. In the recreation area you can hike, camp, nature watch or picnic. The Observation Trail features unique sandstone rock…
the Forest Service page for it → - Jackson Falls
The bluffs and rock faces found at Jackson Falls offer excellent technical climbing surrounded by a beautifully scenic area of the Shawnee National Forest. Considered part of the general forest area the Jackson Falls has a vault…
the Forest Service page for it → - Johnson Creek Recreation Area
Located on a northwest finger of beautiful Kinkaid Lake, Johnson Creek Recreation Area offers a variety of outdoor activities. Here you will find something for everyone in the family, from camping and kayaking to hiking along the…
the Forest Service page for it → - Lake Tecumseh
This is a very shallow lake (approximately 4 feet or less). It was constructed for flood control purposes. Water levels fluctuate widely and sport fish population are marginal.
the Forest Service page for it → - Lake of Egypt
The southeast side of the Lake of Egypt is surrounded by Shawnee National Forest and open to primitive camping in the general forest area. Hickory Ridge Boat Launch is a gravel launch situated on the eastern finger of Lake of…
the Forest Service page for it → - Oakwood Bottoms & Turkey Bayou Campground
A favorite with waterfowl hunters, Oakwood Bottoms offers so much more from excellent bird watching to fishing opportunities and primitive camping at Turkey Bayou Campground. Picnic with your family or youth group at Oakwood…
the Forest Service page for it → - One Horse Gap Lake
Named after the nearby One Horse Gap rock formation, this 26-acre lake is a favorite during hot summer days for a cool dip and for primitive camping and horseback riding throughout the year. One Horse Gap Brochure/map
the Forest Service page for it → - Panther Den Wilderness
The United States Congress designated Panther Den as a wilderness area in 1990. It now has a total of 1195 acres, 1081 acres is National Forest System and other portion is the Crab Orchard Wilderness. The primary trail system is…
the Forest Service page for it → - Pennant Bar Openlands
One of the most expansive managed openland areas in the Shawnee, Pennant Bar Ranch is several hundred acres of grasses, shrubs and lowlands. It has several fishing ponds and offers opportunities for hunting and trapping. It is…
the Forest Service page for it → - Tower Rock Campground
Located along the banks of the Ohio River, Tower Rock Campground offers beautiful scenery and close proximity to water activities like fishing and boating. The 1/4 mile trail can be accessed near the boat launch. Be aware this…
the Forest Service page for it → - Whoopie Cat Lake
Relax and enjoy the seclusion of this picturesque lake.
the Forest Service page for it →
Where the camps cluster
The place
Tucked into the far southern tip of Illinois between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Shawnee National Forest is the largest publicly owned body of land in the state -- and it looks almost nothing like the Illinois most people picture. Instead of corn and section-line roads, you get oak-hickory forest, flourishing wetlands, grassy open lands, lush canyons, sheer bluffs and genuinely strange geology. The Forest Service spreads across nine southern Illinois counties, with the supervisor's office in Harrisburg and district offices in Jonesboro and Vienna. What makes the place punch above its weight is location: four of Illinois' natural divisions meet here -- the Missouri Ozark Hills, the Mississippi River Bottomlands, the Shawnee Hills and the Coastal Plain -- so habitats that normally sit hundreds of miles apart are stacked within a short drive of one another. That is the whole pitch for camping here. You can sleep under a sandstone overhang one night and walk a bald cypress swamp the next.
History
People have been using these bluffs for a very long time. At Millstone Bluff in Pope County, Mississippian people built semi-subterranean houses between roughly 1350 and 1550 CE and carved petroglyphs into the sandstone -- thunderbirds, pipes, axes, turkey tracks, a spider-like figure and the cross-and-circle motif -- and the site also holds a stone box cemetery and a Late Woodland stone fort. The Forest Service now maintains an interpretive trail there. Later history is harder. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail runs through this country south of Jonesboro. In the 1800s the hills were industrial: the Illinois Iron Furnace near Rosiclare, built between 1837 and 1839 by Chalon Guard and Leonard White, made iron by the charcoal blast method and stands today, reconstructed, as the only remaining iron furnace structure in Illinois. The forest itself came out of the Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the Illini and Shawnee Purchase Units to be the Shawnee National Forest in September 1939, and most of the land added in that first decade was exhausted farmland -- worn out, eroding, and for sale. Through the 1930s and 1940s the Civilian Conservation Corps planted pine across those bare hillsides to hold the soil in place and let it rebuild. Much of the deep green you camp in today is land that was given up on and grew back.
Wildlife & plants
The four-natural-divisions collision is the reason the species list here reads strangely for Illinois. The forest is home and host to more than 200 species of breeding and migrating birds, helped along by sitting in the Mississippi Flyway -- spring and fall migration is the show. On the ground you share the woods with white-tailed deer, wild turkey, bobcat and fox. Down in the Coastal Plain division at the southern edge, bald cypress-tupelo swamps bring genuinely southern animals this far north, including the bird-voiced tree frog and the cottonmouth. The Ozark division on the western side adds hill prairies and its own oddities -- plains scorpion, spring cavefish, eastern narrow-mouthed toad, coachwhip and northern flat-headed snake all live in Illinois only in that corner. The single best illustration is the LaRue-Pine Hills/Otter Pond Research Natural Area, where about 66 percent of the amphibians and 59 percent of the reptiles known to occur in Illinois are found. Practical note for campers: this is snake country in the real sense -- copperheads and rattlesnakes are present along the River to River Trail, along with an enthusiastic tick population. Watch where you put your hands on the bluffs.
Notable features
Garden of the Gods is the postcard -- a 3,318-acre wilderness of hoodoos and weathered formations with names like Camel Rock, Anvil Rock and Table Rock, cut from a thick bed of gray sandstone laid down around 300 million years ago and never scraped flat by the glaciers that flattened the rest of the state. It is the most-visited wilderness area in Illinois, with paved access to Buzzards Point, and it is spectacular in fall color. Bell Smith Springs near Eddyville was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1980 and holds the largest natural stone arch in the forest, a 125-foot span, plus sandstone cliffs, four creeks with swimming pools and about 8 miles of marked trails. Little Grand Canyon is a creek-carved gorge more than 200 feet deep that shelters relict Arctic plants left over from the ice ages. Jackson Falls is the region's rock-climbing destination. Seven congressionally designated wilderness areas are scattered across the forest -- Bald Knob, Bay Creek, Burden Falls, Clear Springs, Garden of the Gods, Lusk Creek and Panther Den -- and the 160-mile River to River Trail crosses the whole thing, running from Grand Tower on the Mississippi to Elizabethtown on the Ohio, with sections doing double duty as part of the American Discovery Trail. Other names worth knowing: Lake Glendale, Kinkaid Lake, Cedar Lake, High Knob and Trigg Tower.
Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.