Gander Mountain Forest Preserve

The highest natural elevation in Lake County is located within Gander Mountain Forest Preserve. The site was created by the retreating Laurentide glacier from the last ice age, 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The glacier once covered five million square miles from Hudson Bay in northern Canada to New England and across the upper Midwestern states. Ice as much as a quarter-mile thick covered most of Illinois.