New Trail Leads to Eklund Garden

Bee Balm at Eklund Garden

New blazes

We have a new trail marked with red and white flower blazes that leads from the Rec Path to Eklund Garden after just 1200 ft (0.2 mile).

While it's always been pretty easy to follow various trails to Eklund Garden (the blue Paugussett Trail goes right through the center of the garden), a lot of people who walk the Rec Path are not hikers and not interested in doing some research and figuring out how to get there. It needs to be self-evident. And so we now have blazes that (hopefully) look like flowers to lead people directly there.

Once they get to the garden, they can either go back the way they came or, for people who parked at the Dog Park, take the blue Paugussett Trail back along the shoreline of scenic Hope Lake. And that gives us the "red/white and blue" loop.  Shall we place some flags along the way? The total distance of the loop is about 1.75 mile.

The blazes took longer to paint than the trail took to clear. It's really good paint, so hopefully they will last a long time. The Dog Paw path (blazes are dog prints) that leads from the Rec Path to the back side of the Dog Park has turned out to be very popular, so hopefully these blazes will enjoy the same success.

Another big improvement last week was a new parking area at Eklund Garden, which can be used by hikers, bikers, and fishermen.   Previously, it was hard to pull off the road completely, and people would drive back and forth looking for the garden and not finding it.  Still need to replace the Eklund signs that someone ripped off.  The parking lot was built by the Rec Path contractor, Pruzinsky & Sons. Thank you! 

New parking area at 10 Oak Valley Road