Woodland Trail opens at Atwood Lake Park

Residents and visitors to the region took advantage of seasonal temperatures and plenty of sunshine to attend Atwood Lake Park for a ribbon-cutting ceremony that introduced the Woodland Trail near Marina West on Saturday, May 15. The event also included a scavenger hunt, guided hikes and activity booths.

At 4/10 of a mile, the Woodland Trail is one of the park’s shorter trails.

“While it’s a shorter trail, it’s an important one for a couple of reasons,” said Craig Butler, executive director of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, which operates a system of dams and reservoirs in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers that includes Atwood Lake Park. “One, it is a safety issue for us. This trail connects close to the north shore cottage area. There was no easy way for folks in that cottage area to get down to the park. One of our objectives was to keep people from having to walk on the road when it was busy. Secondly and most importantly, this is part of a larger trail development.”

Jeff Yohe, deputy chief of facilities at MWCD, said the paved Woodland Trail is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. Some of the trail's features include a 300-foot-long boardwalk over a category 2 wetland, as well as three other boardwalks. The total project cost was $410,000.

“Of that we got a $150,000 grant from ODNR from the recreational trails program. That helped bring that cost down for us,” Yohe said.

The Cemetery Bay Trail at the other end of the park is currently under construction. The project consists of the construction of a 1.3-mile trail that will be 8 feet wide with a limestone granular surface and 7,750 square feet of asphalt parking to serve as a new trailhead. Completion is scheduled for November 2021.

The goal is to eventually have connecting trails that go all the way around Atwood Lake.

Atwood Lake Park currently has about 6 miles of walking and biking trails, some of which are paved. A lighted trail runs between the Nature Center and the amphitheater.

In 2013 a two-phase master plan that supports the MWCD's mission of flood reduction, conservation and recreation was approved. Commissioned and funded by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy Foundation in 2012, campgrounds and marinas constructed between 1947 and 1966 had no major redevelopment or construction since their inception. In an effort to meet the demand of an ever-changing industry, MWCD increased power service and campsite size to accommodate modern recreational vehicles.

“Over the past six years, MWCD has been actively constructing around $130 million in upgrades to our parks and marinas,” said Eric Stechschulte, deputy chief of planning and projects at MWCD. “There is so much more to come in the next five years.”

The MWCD Board of Directors approved the second phase of the master plan in July 2019 for an additional $65 million. “A little over $10.5 million for the second phase will focus on activities and amenities like this one within all our parks,” Stechschulte said.

MWCD is working with Environmental Design Group of Akron to identify specific activities and amenities that would be best received in the parks. In January EDG conducted online surveys and focus groups to find out what people like to do when they visit MWCD facilities. More than 3,800 people took part in the survey, and more than 100 people participated in the live online focus groups.

“The results told us that over 87% of the people who took the survey responded that they believe trails are important as an amenity,” Stechschulte said. “This did not surprise us as this echoes the results we have seen in state and national surveys.”

Other amenities that scored highly in the surveys included improvements to beaches and the addition of splash pads, water slides and inflatable aqua parks. Land-based activities like miniature golf, additional walking and mountain bike trails, playgrounds, and sports courts also were popular with those who took the survey.

According to Stechschulte, MWCD is actively pursuing a trails coordinator, a position new to the organization. It would be the responsibility of the trails coordinator to develop existing and new trails within MWCD properties.

Camping and boating serve as major sources of revenue to maintain operations of the MWCD parks and marinas.

Atwood Lake Park is located in Tuscarawas and Carroll counties at 9500 Lakeview Road, Mineral City.