Get out with Ord
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Water flows down one of the Kinkaid Lake Spillway's many sections of falls Wednesday. The Spillway, west on Route 13, is a popular area for relaxing with family and friends. Genna Ord | Daily Egyptian
Editor’s note:
Get out with Ord will be a weekly installment exploring the outdoor beauty southern Illinois has to offer.
Carbondale is a sticky place during the summer and early autumn.
Temperatures climb into the upper 90s, but the number on the thermometer stops making a difference after a certain point. Regardless of what it reads, the air will be stifling and everybody will be filmy with sweat as soon as they step outside. The air conditioner can be cranked only so much, especially for those with cost in mind.
But there is something else southern Illinois is surprisingly rich in — water.
Laura Partain, a senior from Houston studying cinema and photography, said she has spent much of the last month swimming in area lakes and ponds.
Carbondale’s lack of an outdoor public pool doesn’t bother Partain. She said she can hardly stand swimming pools, whether public or private.
“I feel confined in them,” she said. “The chemicals in the pool bother my eyes and skin.”
Fortunately for her and everyone else seeking fun relief from the heat, there are at least two popular swimming destinations within a 30-minute drive of campus. Both the Kinkaid Lake Spillway and an area of bluffs called Peter’s Cave, also on Kinkaid, offer two different types of swimming experiences.
“I find the Spillway to be much more beautiful and relaxing, but when I’m feeling adventurous, there’s nothing like jumping off the cliffs at Kinkaid,” Partain said.
The cliffs in question are impressive and not easy to reach. Sandstone bluffs, around 50 feet tall at their highest point, seem much higher by looking from the top into the sparkling green lake where the boats look like toys. For the more faint-hearted, the cliff angles downward, allowing prospective jumpers to pick a spot lower by the water.
David Quinney and Eric Widing, both from Crystal Lake, chose one of the highest points to jump from and counted to three before they hurled themselves from the cliff in unison. Their bodies seemed suspended for a minute; there was one lingering yell and then two loud splashes followed by laughter as they both surfaced.
Quinney, a senior studying geography and environmental resources, said he enjoyed the jump but preferred it with a little less height.
“You know you’ve been in the air too long when you feel like you’ve been in the air too long,” he said.
The two men’s purpose was not to jump off the cliffs, though — it was to scale them again. They’re both rock climbers, and the bluffs provide some of the only over-water climbing in the area, something called deep-water soloing.
Regardless of whether the goal is to jump down or climb up, there are two ways to reach the bluff. The quicker is by motorboat or canoe, which starts from one of the several boat launches. The lesser-known is a 45-minute hike that winds through an overgrown field before the trail meets the woods, then leads through the trees and onto the top of the cliff.
For those who want a little less work — and a little more safety — for an equally picturesque location, following Illinois Route 13 west through Murphysboro until a left turn on Spillway Road winds up at the Spillway itself.
In the dryer months, the waterfalls lack the thundering majesty they get after a heavy rainfall. However, they continue to be an impressive sight. There are several tiers, and climbing up the rock alongside them eventually leads to the lake itself, with a buoyed-off swimming area to protect from boaters. It is a perfect location for spending time with friends, whether lounging on the shore, swimming in the lake or sitting with the falls to your back.
An alcohol ban was placed on the Spillway about five years ago. Bob Catt, the site superintendent at Lake Murphysboro State Park and Kinkaid Lake Fish and Wildlife Area, said the ban was placed for safety reasons.
“We were having a tremendous amount of trouble with littering, disorderly conduct, fighting and other things that come with people having too much to drink,” he said. “We wanted to turn it into more of a family atmosphere, and we seem to have accomplished that.”
Catt said there have been instances where people who had been drinking landed wrong in the water after cliff jumping, with one incident resulting in a broken back.
When common sense is used, though, Kinkaid Lake becomes a haven for swimming, fishing, boating, picnicking and is only one of the many places around Carbondale to keep it cool.
Genna Ord can be reached at [email protected]
or 536-311 ext. 255.
