Let’s be honest with each other, every time we see a photo of a person standing by a waterfall at Starved Rock, we all get mildly annoyed. Not out of jealousy, but purely because we’ve seen the same photo a thousand times, at least I have. Now I had never been tothe Starved Rock, so until this past week, I wouldn’t have been able to form an opinion on the matter. One of my best friends, senior Eric Rogers, recommended we go over Spring Break because the weather was awesome and he is in the AP Environmental Science class, or APES as some call it, and wanted to pick up loose garbage around the site. Of course, considering I’m kind of a “tree hugger,” I was super excited to go. So we made the hike down to Utica over break and last minute, we decided to go to both Matthiessen and Starved Rock. I had never heard of Matthiessen but it still piqued my interest. Little did I know, Matthiessen would completely surprise me and was so much better than Starved Rock.

Matthiessen and Starved Rock are about a 5-five minute drive from one another so if you are planning on going to starved rock, you might as well top by Matthiessen as well. I preferred Matthiessen for a number of reasons. Number one was purely out due to the size difference. Starved Rock is a whopping two thousand, six hundred, and thirty acres while Matthiessen extends over one thousand, seven hundred acres. To me, Matthiessen is simply more attainable to complete in one day. We only spent about an hour and a half at Matthiessen but we easily could have spent three to four there – possibly even a whole day. Starved Rrock was so large, I’m not even sure if you could complete the whole thing in a day. Eric and I went to three separate canyons at Starved Rock and it still took us almost three hours.

Now, this could be debatable, but I would argue Matthiessen is both more tranquil and scenic than Starved Rock. There were so many people at Starved Rock I could barely focus on the scenery. The only way Eric and I got to truly experience some of the coolest parts of Starved Rock was by going off the path (I don’t condone going off the path, you can definitely get in trouble for this). Whereas Matthiessen was almost entirely trails paved by nature, rather than wooden planks and fences. Whether I’m a rebel or just stubborn, call it what you will, I don’t enjoy being told what to do. So when I found out I was going to a forest preserve, I wanted to go exploring, do some amateur rock climbing, or whatever my soul desired. Starved Rock was too orderly for me. IFirst of all, if you think the stairs by the library are hard to go up, don’t even think about going to Starved Rock. There were about 10,000 steps to go up and down and we were by these fences until about a couple miles in. It was also super difficult to pick up trash at Starved Rock, not to mention itStarved Rock had significantly more trash laying around than Matthiessen.

While walking around Matthiessen, I felt free and at peace. We walked through the rivers and waterfalls, climbed up the sides of the canyons, and performed what I consider to be low-level parkour. We had so much more fun at Matthiessen because we weren’t confined to one main route. We could pretty much venture wherever we wanted. We met so many unique people at Matthiessen and they were all so nice. Even the old man who laughed when I fell in the water. The visitors at Starved Rock weren’t necessarily unfriendly, just not as willing to converse with each other. Also, there were a plethora of children at Starved Rock. I am kind of afraid of children as well, so for me, this was a large contributing factor as to why I preferred Matthiessen to Starved Rock.

Both state parks are beautiful and worth the trip. I definitely don’t regret going to Starved Rock in the slightest, and in fact, I’ll probably go back. But Matthiessen won my heart and my winning vote. So next time you consider going to Starved Rock, maybe suggest going to Matthiesen as well.