Trail Overview
Bork Falls Road, also known partly as Regent Lane and Cedar Grove Road and featuring the Goreville Waterfall, is a gravel road through Johnson County, Illinois. It provides access to the western section of Ferne Clyffe State Park and Bork Falls. The road is generally well-maintained, featuring only a few mild natural obstacles, including the natural rock at Bork Falls and the creek crossings at Buck Branch. The road's main purpose is to provide access to the western section of hiking and sightseeing within Ferne Clyffe State Park, including the waterfall and undercut bluff. You'll find a hiking trail down to the bottoms of said waterfall and the surrounding waterside area of Buck Branch Creek, full of natural creek rock and water pools surrounded by peaceful tree lines. This makes for a great outing if looking to get some easy offroad action paired with some hiking and natural scenery.
Difficulty
The Bork Falls Road is mostly a 1/10 road, featuring a well-maintained gravel road base and the common complications of potholes, mounding, and washboarding. It also has two small creek crossings that feature shallow water; on summer days, it is potentially dry, but in springtime and wet conditions, it can be upwards of 6 inches deep, and very rarely 12 inches deep in flooding conditions. The Bork Falls location features smoothed unlevel natural rock at its crossing point. This features little variations of the rock amounting easily to 4- to 6-inches in size, with optional lines of greater variation closer to the bluff/falls. These two crossings and variations of the natural rock push the road to the given 2/10 rating. Outside of this, there are a few mild hills to climb, but these feature consistent gravel with only mild signs of erosion. Difficulty can increase in extremely wet conditions and flooding scenarios.
