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Monday, October 6, 2008 9:26 PM CDT
Volunteers team up to restore Lake View Park trails
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Bicyclist Keith Cox sees a lot of potential for the city’s oft-forgotten Lake View Park to have a nice trail system for bicycling and hiking.
He has turned his vision into action in recent months by organizing volunteers to help refurbish and expand the park’s trail system in cooperation with the Charleston Parks and Recreation Department.
“We have something so close to home that is a really beautiful park, so we should take advantage of it,” Cox said. “We need to take advantage of what we have here and really develop it to the fullest.”
Cox, manager of the Bike-N-Hike shop in Charleston, led a trail building day Saturday afternoon at the 60-acre park, located at the end of east McKinley Avenue alongside Lake Charleston.
The volunteers have developed an approximately 1.6-mile loop of trails through the heavily wooded and hilly park during a series of work days, Cox said. The loop has replaced a system of individual trails that faded away into dead ends.
“There was quite a bit of trails, but nothing was connected together,” Cox said.
Cox has recruited volunteers from the bicyclists and hikers he meets at work, he said. Those who are interested in volunteering can contact him at Bike-N-Hike, 345-1316.
Developing trails has involved removing downed limbs and a lot of other hard work, Cox said. The more volunteers there are, the better the trails will become, he said.
City Parks and Recreation Director Brian Jones said he has been pleasantly surprised by how willing Cox and his fellow volunteers have been to take on the trail building project. He said this volunteerism has been helpful for the recreation department, which has a small staff.
“We feel like it’s a great partnership,” Jones said. He added the city may eventually connect the existing trails at Lake View to new trails that would be developed to the south in the city’s 206-acre Woodyard Conservation Area.
Visitors can access Lake View by parking in a lot at the end of east McKinley Avenue and walking past a gate down a short lane into the park.
Jones said the park was initially gated several years ago in preparation for construction traffic at the new water treatment plant nearby on McKinley Avenue. He said the gate has remained closed on a regular basis to help curb vandalism at the isolated park.
Both Cox and Jones said they are hopeful that the increased presence of bicyclists and hikers at Lake View will help deter vandalism.
Cox said somebody has been pulling downed limbs across the newly cleared trails at Lake View, but this activity has decreased in recent weeks. He said whoever covered the trails put in a lot of effort — effort that would be a welcome part of the trail building project.
“We just want the community to know we are developing it. We are out there to grow the trails and help restore them,” Cox said.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 348-5734.
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