If you like hiking among cool rock formations and gorges, there are only a few places you can find these sites in a region known better for its flat farmland. One of our favorite spots for camping and hiking in Indiana is Turkey Run State Park. This park gets about 1 million visitors a year and is the rated as the No. 1 state park in Indiana.
It is located about about 3 hours south of Chicago and about 1.5 hours from Indianapolis, south of I-74 in west, central Indiana. It is best known for its great hiking trials along Sugar Creek and the connecting valleys of small feeder streams, camping and its old lodge. In the fall, it offers amazing views of as the trees change color.
It is also located in Indiana’s beautiful and rustic covered bridge country, where that are more than 30 preserved covered bridges. Two of these bridges are located on the east and west boundaries of the state park along Sugar Creek, one of which you can still drive across. Maps are available showing where the bridges are so you can visit. Some of the oldest bridges date from the 1850s. Each October, the area is a major tourist destination to see the fall colors and the region’s Covered Bridge Festival, where towns throughout the area are filled with activities, food, entertainment and dozens of flea markets and antique sales.
Turkey Run Nature Center is a Good Place to Start the Trip
A great place to get an overview of the geology, history and animals and plants of the park is to start at the Turkey Run State Park Nature Center. It offers interpretive naturalist services all year long. Scheduled programs include hikes, planetarium programs, history talks, a junior naturalist program, and evening programs. Find more information on the Nature Center.
Hiking Canyons, Rivers and the Steep Hills of Turkey Run
The most impressive feature of the park is its 14 miles of hiking trails. Here is a link to the park hiking trails.
The best place to access these is from the visitor’s center parking lot, or from the lodge parking lot. We found the groupings of trails are divided between the these two starting points.
The shortest, as some of the most impressive trails, are located literally a stones throw from the lodge. The trail heads are on the south side of the lodge parking lot next to the first cabins, and the other end is located behind the lodge. Trail 6 loops behind the lodge past the Lieber Cabin, built in 1848, one of the original log cabins on the property. There is a beautiful overlook of Sugar Creek on the bluff over the river. You then defend down stairs cut into the rock to the mouth of Turkey Run creek. Over the past several thousand years, the creek has cut a gorge that is about 100 feet deep through the sandstone bedrock. The trail continues about half a mile though the gorge, under an old, 100-year-old highway bridge (which looks really impressive from below), and then up the bluff into the lodge parking area.
Legend has it that the local Indians and the first white pioneers would find wild turkeys in the gorge, making it easier to hunt them.
If hiking around the edges of the gorge above, stay on the trails, because the edges of the gorge are not evident everywhere and it is serious cliff drop. Mind your kids and dogs.
Behind the lodge you can also access Trail 11, which starts on the small road leading to the last cabins and crosses the 100-year-old highway bridge. It goes a couple hundred yards into the woods to an old log church built in 1871 and the Col. Richard Leiber memorial for the founding father of the Indiana State park system. You can look over the edge of the bridge into the gorge is you are not afraid of heights. The bridge is somewhat short, so it looks like you should see a small creek, not a deep canyon below.
Trail 1 from the lodge follow the bluff along Sugar Creek to the visitors center a short distance away. From the right side of the visitor center there is a trail that descends to Sugar Creek. There are a lot of stone stairs to get down from the bluff. Then there is really cool, 1920s or 30s vintage suspension bridge across Sugar Creek.
On the other side of the bridge are the trails that are the most strenuous, but also have very impressive rock formations and gorges and elevation changes. There are a lot of stairs, steep inclines, slippery rocks and steep drop offs, all things most people would not expect in Indiana.
At the north side of the bridge, if you left, you will find the canyons and most strenuous, but coolest hikes. Our favorite spots to visit are Rocky Hollow gorge, which narrows down to just a couple feet across in a narrows area where you really need to watch your step along a tiny catwalk rock ledge, or you will slip into the water. The creek is only a couple feet wide at that point, but the water is a foot or two deep in a few spots. The Punch Bowl is a round cauldron of rock that has been carved out the the creek and it has a short waterfall.
Trail 3 from there winds through more small canyons as you slowly ascend the bluffs again. You can follow it through the first to Trails 5 and 9 that take you to Boulder Canyon, Falls Canyon, Bear Hollow and the Ice Box canyon. Beware Trail 3 has ladders set into the rock you need to climb up or down.
Ice Box canyon is right along the river and local legend says livestock thieves would use Sugar Creek to transport their ill-gotten animals to this spot where they housed them or could slaughter them and store them there in the cool enough to help preserve the meat.
If you cross the suspension bridge to the north side and go right, there are some cool formations with Wedge Rock and short ways down. If you follow Trail 4, you descend the bluff to the river where there is the remains of a small coal mine that the locals excavated along a seam at the base of the hill. There are a couple spots along Trail 4 where you can see some of the low-grade coal coming out of the rock faces near the base of the bluff.
Trails 4 and 1 are the easiest hikes along the river and both end up at the Narrows Covered Bridge, where you can cross over the creek to the other side.
Next to this 1883 vintage bridge is a modern bridge. From the east side of the modern bridge you can see the base of the old water wheel mill that was built into the rock where the creek narrows down and formed a sort of nature dam. You can see steps, foundation and the mill race for the water wheel carved into the bedrock.
Taking Trail 1 is a mostly flat easy hike along the creek. Taking Trail 2 will bring you to Gypsy Gulch and Box Canyon to see more cool rock formations.
Visit the restored 1841 Lusk House at Turkey Run
If you follow Trail 4 north a short distance north from the Narrows Covered Bridge, you will find one of the nicer pioneer homes build by the first European settlers to own the land. The Lusk home was built by the owner of the and water wheel grist mill at the narrows on Sugar Creek.
Acquiring the land in 1825, Captain Lusk built a grist mill that was completed in 1829. The Lusk home was completed in 1841. The restored home is open for tours seasonally.
Geology of the Park and Sugar Creek
Sugar Creek has a fine sand base, eroded from the sandstone bedrock. The creek also features many large gravel shoals, some that you can walk out on from the shore. The gravel is from many formations the creek flows through in central Indiana before arriving here, bringing with it Ordovician, Devonian and Pennsylvanian period rocks. As such, there are a fair number of water tumbled fossils among the gravel deposits.
The bedrock of the park itself was formed around a river delta during the Pennsylvanian period. It is mostly sandstone, silt stone and mixed with some small layers of coal that formed when the river shifted and swamps formed and the layers of dead vegetation become the coal.
We also saw several small geodes in the gravel as well, which are pretty common in central and southern Indiana.
Turkey Run Inn was Built in 1916
The park has a lodge with a restaurant and gift shop and 21 neighboring cabins that can be rented. The lodge has 61 rooms that can be booked up to a year in advance. Prices range from $116-$180 per night in 2022.
The restaurant was pretty good the few times I ate there. We have also stayed at the lodge in years past for Thanksgiving to meet up with family and ate Thanksgiving dinner at the restaurant. For that you need to make advanced reservations, as it is still a very popular place even on that holiday.
Here is the link for more information on the Inn.
Information on the Campground at Turkey Run State Park
The Turkey Run State Park campground features 213 electric (Class A) campsites, 6 of which are wheelchair accessible. These modern sites include electrical hookups, picnic table, fire ring, parking spur, drinking water supply in area, modern restrooms/showers, two playgrounds, and an RV dump station.
There is a camp store can help with any last minute needs, and there is a gas station just down the road a half mile that has some food and supplies and can refill propane tanks.
The campsites are organized in clusters because there are steep ravines in between the camp areas. There is a trail head that connects the camps with the trail that leads to the lodge.
Find more information on the campground here.
Similar Cool Hiking Destinations in the Midwest:
Camp amongst the Giants in Giant City State Park IL
Camping with the Eagles at Mississippi Palisades State Park IL
Wisconsin’s Door County Peninsula State Park Is My Happy Place
