A stunning destination with great swimming holes, beautiful creeks, and spectacular rock formations. We loved this area and will be back soon.

Highlights

  • Several awesome swimming holes including one with cliff jumps and a rope swing
  • Largest natural arch in the Illinois
  • Outside of the swimming holes, most of the park doesn’t get much traffic so you can have it to yourself.
  • Spectacular rock formations
  • Beautiful hikes along pretty streams
  • Red Bud is a nice, very basic, primitive campground
  • Amazing CCC-built stairway that takes you through some nice bluffs down to the creek.
  • Good wayfinding signage along the trails

Lowlights

  • The trail to the top of the natural arch with overgrown with tons of poison ivy.
  • There were some maintenance issues (fire ring had dangerous jagged metal stick out, a fair amount of trash laying around) that needed addressing at the Red Bud campground
  • No cell phone signal means you should do some good planning before you go (or just ask people when you get there).

Getting There

Bell Smith Springs is a bit of 2.5 hours (165 miles) from central St. Louis down in Southern Illinois. There are two parking lots a bit past the campground. The best place to park is the first/upper parking lot as that will take you right to the big CCC-built staircase. The 2nd parking lot is a quarter-mile down the road and has a loop for turning around.

Links

Tags

CCC Built Staircase at Bell Smith Springs
Trail to Devils Backbone
Devils Backbone Swimming Hole at Bell Smith Springs
Swimmings at Devils Backbone at Bell Smith Springs
Rock formations near Devils Backbone
Path to the bottom of the natural arch
Creek at Bell Smith Springs
Signage along the Bells Smith Springs trail
Bell Smith Springs – top of a waterfall
Bell Smith Springs – Natural Arch
Under the largest natural arch in Illinois
Hiking along a creek at Bell Smith Springs
Creek Runs through Bell Smith Springs