Burden Falls Wilderness

Burden Falls Wilderness is a 3,775-acre protected, roadless tract in the Shawnee National Forest of southern Illinois, spanning parts of Pope and Saline counties. Centered on Burden Creek, it features steep slopes, sandstone ledges, and one of Illinois’s higher waterfalls, where the creek drops 20 feet over a shelf and then descends another 80 feet in cascades and cataracts. Its shut-ins and rugged ravines reflect a landscape shaped by long erosion rather than glaciation, which did not reach this part of the state during the Ice Ages. Second-growth hardwood forest and the Burden Falls Trail help define this federally protected wilderness, established in 1990.

Illinois · United States