Driving through the vast and typically packed Swallow Cliff Woods parking lot, the stairs — dueling limestone risers bookending a steep hillside that used to be a toboggan slide — look inviting.
There might be families picnicking on large lawns to either side, and the stairs are usually teeming with climbers of all stripe — packs of high school athletes, yoga pants gaggles, joggers, dog walkers, shirtless bros rocking six-pack abs and Beats headphones.
But heading up the sidewalk toward the stairs, feeling the gentle tug at your hamstrings as the grade steepens, you start to notice the sweat-soaked bodies strewn about — mopping brows and chugging water over by the pavilion, gingerly stretching calves off of parking blocks — and something akin to worry sets in.
Then, 30 steps in, you’re thinking, “This isn’t so bad.”
Thirty steps later your thighs are heavy.
Thirty steps more your lungs have put a stop to any desire for small talk with your fellow climbers, your eyes lift and you think, “Thirty-five more? This is stupid.”
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“That’s when you catch a glance from a stranger,” 32-year-old Marty Mangan, a Mount Greenwood resident, said. “You know what they’re going through, they know what you’re going through. It’s that look that says, ‘Just get to the top. The rest’ll be easy.'”
Sure, easy. Easy enough for some climbers to build small mounds of pebbles, counting their ascents, on the sitting wall ringing the area up top. Easy enough for one woman to do crunches on a nearby concrete pad, another to do dips off a bench.
And all around, people are flowing off into the woods.
“For me, the stairs are just a warmup,” Penny Cho, a 46-year-old from Darien, said. “I walk the whole yellow trail — 8.2 miles.”
The top of the stairs affords access to an 800-acre preserve and two primary trails. The longer yellow loop extends west to the Cap Sauers Holding Nature Preserve and east to the Palos Park Preserve.
“We don’t have another facility like this in Chicagoland,” Cho said. “It’s not just a flat park. I tell people I’m going hiking, and they say, ‘Where?'”
Swallow Cliff is a 100-foot-high bluff formed, according to Forest Preserve District literature, 12,000 years ago when glacier meltwater carved out the Sag Valley. Its moraines, wetlands, dense oak forests and prairies are far from typical for the flat state of Illinois, and the area is a haven for mountain bikers and bird watchers alike.
“In terms of ecology, Cook County Forest Preserves spokesperson Lambrini Lukidis said, “the Palos area is one of our greatest assets.”
As are the Swallow Cliff stairs.
The original set of 125 steps, constructed in 1930 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, served as a toboggan run that closed in 2004.
They’re uneven, varying in depth and with riser heights anywhere from 4 1/4 to nearly 9 inches, forcing climbers to concentrate less on speed than precision.
“It’s a great workout,” Daniel Ortiz, 26, of Cicero said. “I started coming here with the soccer team for workouts when I played at Morton College. It’s great cardio, for sure — a total lower-body workout. Ten trips, that’s usually what I shoot for.”
The new stairs, 168 in total, opened in 2016 and are, like the originals, limestone.
But they’re also fairly uniform, with risers at roughly six inches and landings every 10 steps.
“The newer ones, you can take them two at a time,” Mangan said. “Some people like to do loops, around and around. I like to do ‘U’ shapes — up the outside of the news stairs, down the outside of the old, up the inside of the old, down the inside of the new.
“There’s always people here. Even when the weather’s nasty — snowy, rainy — there’s still people out here chugging it out.”
The popularity of the site has prompted the Forest Preserve District to bump available parking to more than 200 spaces and add a $1.5 million pavilion with restrooms and concessions.
It has also added a variety of programs that include:
*Nature Discovery Day, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. July 6. Stair races, obstacle courses, nature hikes, nature-based art making, kite flying and more. Call 312-533-5751 for more information
*Concert at the Cliff, 6 – 8:30 p.m. July 13. In partnership with the village of Palos Park, enjoy the summer sounds of Pirates over 40. Bring your chairs, blankets and picnic baskets for a relaxing evening. Call 708-671-3760 or go to www.palospark.org for details.
*Films in the Forest, 6:30 p.m. Aug. 22. The animated film “Zootopia” is featured.
But, the district is also taking advantage of the constant flow of health-minded outdoorsy types into the Swallow Cliff Preserve.
“We use the stairs as a place to recruit people for work days in the forest preserves,” Lukidis said.
“We use volunteers for restoration work such as removing invasive species, and we’ve found recruiting people at the stairs is great. They already want to be outdoors, they’re fit, and they love the forest preserves.”
Phil Arvia is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
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Swallow Cliff Woods Stairs
10267 Calumet Sag Road, Palos Hills
Hours: Sunrise to sunset
Admission: Free
Information: www.fpdcc.com/swallow-cliff