Some Trail Expansion: Build It

We’re expanding the singletrack at Leaders Park and we need your help, please.

At the very northwestern part of the park there’s a severe elevation drop to the north bridge. This portion of trail gets lots of use by the neighborhood because it’s the most direct route from Homestead Circle to Ronning Park at the top of the hill. We’ve seen quite a lot of deterioration from erosion and traffic. It’s time to change the routing.

This deteriorating section of trail also roughly marks the northern border of Leaders Park. We’ve spent some time around a table with park’s leadership describing the whys and wherefores of what we want to do. We’ve also spent time showing them a roughed in solution to our problem.

They agree it’s the right thing to do and the right way to do it.

Here it is: we’ll go north, gradually down the hillside and south to reconnect to the bridge. We will also connect our trail to the east/west portion of Homestead Circle. This provides an access point; additional on-street parking spaces and a nice connection through the park for people utilizing our trail for FUN transport.

It’s a modest expansion but it’s also the biggest publicly available singletrack expansion within 70 miles of Sioux Falls in two years.

One week from today, Thursday August 29 at 6pm IMBA trained Adam will lead a learning and trail building session at the park. After Labor Day the work will continue on Thursday evenings until the build is complete. Please commit to a few Thursday nights between now and the end of October.

The meet spot for the learning/building session is Homestead Circle & Lowell Ave at the north end of the park.

There are no trail faeries. Singletrack exists because people build it.