Swope Park preview/trail closure adventure: Saturday, November 24th.

[ Spread the Dirt ]

Swope Park…wanna come and see the terrain that’s a little bit the Ouachita Trail, the Womble, Landahl, Crowder, Perry and BuRP? Yea, that’s not an exaggeration…but before the tour begins, the park needs you to earn a little dirt first.

Call this a preview and earn your dirt day all rolled into one. For years, ATV’s have been playing (trespassing) in the Phase One portion of Swope Park and have created quite an extensive trail thru the property. In fact, they are still very active. We need your help with a little trail closure before any tool can be put into the ground. We’ll be closing several access points and a bulk of the trail they have laid.

the dirt specifics:
When: This Saturday, November 24th at 8:30am – 11:30amish
Where: Swope Park. Soccer fields off of 63rd Street. See map below for where to park/meet.
What to bring: Work gloves, pulaski’s, chain and/or hand saws and a friend.

Earn Your Dirt

Mmm...good

A 3d view of phase 1 looking to the east.

A quick tease...from the north end looking south. Large rocks like these are littered through out the park.

Scouting v.3

Yesterday, one focus was the lower trail that will be the beginner/kid friendly section. Once we were sure that we'd be able to get a nice sized loop with good flow, we headed towards the two known pinch points. Overall, I felt better after scouting these two sections.

We actually started putting up marking tape. If you've ever ridden Blowout Mtn on the Ouachita trail down in good 'ole AR, we'll have our own LITTLE section of Blowout...big rock that we'll dance our way thru...without the monster climb.

I'm such a loser. I brought my camera to take some pics. Problem was, I got so excited and engaged in the trail, I forgot to take any shots. I promise, I'll get some soon.

Phase 1 area

View Larger Map

This is the general area of phase 1
South of 63rd Street.
North of Wild Cat Hollow
East of Lewis Road
West of Railroad tracks and I-435.

Our guess is that we will get between 3-4 miles of trail in this first phase. The trails will have a mix of trail difficulty and should give everyone something to enjoy. We will also be implementing a kid friendly section to get our up-a-coming mtn bikers a place to develop skills and get accustomed to riding dirt.

Overall, we're still exploring our options and boundaries, but we believe we will end up with between 10-18 miles of trail in the entire Swope project.

Beginning this weekend we will be scouting/flagging on a weekly basis. We are beginning to compile a list of volunteers who might want to help in this project. Please email swopetrails@gmail.com if you'd like to be added to our distribution list.

We highly encourage anyone who is already involved with other trail systems to keep helping with your current trail systems. We are really hoping to recruite a new group of volunteers at Swope.

Over the next couple weeks, we will be adding a lot of information. Including workdays, history of how this project came about, and pics of the incredible topography we have to deal with.

Here we go...

Last Saturday with humble beginnings, the scouting of Swope began. Scott and I spent 5 hrs scouting what will, mostly likely be, all 3 phases of Swope.

Basically, we wanted to get a good feel of what we have to look forward to. We were both completely blown away with the potential and are honored that we get the opportunity to develop these trails. We will begin flagging phase 1 this next weekend and will be posting updates often.