This is a great story……the sad
part is the statement that only 5-10 people show up once a month….wish I
lived closer…..use to ride there occasionally when I lived in Marietta,
GA.? If just the RIDERS that used the park would contribute ONE day a YEAR,
they would have more people than work to do. ?Maybe we don’t deserve to
have trails…..
Another interesting fact about this park.?
It does not allow bikes.? Some years ago, it did.? The park decided to allow
only foot traffic, including horses.? There was much consternation in the bike
community, resulting in the formation of a bike organization…..The
Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA)….and the rest is history.
From: Larry Wheat
[mailto:l.wheat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006
12:07 PM To: Larry Wheat Subject:KennesawMountainPark Info-thanks Richard
According to its Charter, the purpose
of the park is historic preservation of the 2nd most visited
National Battlefield behind Gettysburg. The
reality is that the park is a historic and natural preserve, and also a primary
recreational facility for a large and varied community of users. The
current discussion is about the organized running teams that use the park for
their training. Runners represent a large and easily identified user
group. However, the trails are also used by hikers, dog walkers, horse
back riders, bird watchers, historians, naturalists and many other users.
There is no
question that the community loves this park. We’re loving it to death.
In 1995 according to reports the park staff numbered 21 today it’s down
to 14. Of the 14 National Park Service Staff, only 3 are full time maintenance
staff. Those 3 staff members are responsible for all maintenance in the
park including upkeep of the buildings, collecting the trash, mowing the
fields, etc. Three people will never have the time to do any of the
maintenance that is required on the 21 miles of trail in the park.
Since the
fall of 2002, a small committed group of volunteers representing many of the
diverse users of KennesawMountainNationalBattlefieldPark has
taken on responsibility for doing all of the trail construction and maintenance
in the park. To date the Kennesaw Mountain Trail Club (KEMOTrail
Corps, Inc. a 501 C3 non-profit corporation) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kennesawtrails
has contributed over 8,000 hours of service maintaining the trails in the
park. Boy Scouts from several Cobb County Troops have completed 11 Eagle
Projects with guidance from advisors provided by the trail club, and will
complete 7 more in 2006. Under the direction of the National Park Service the
club has built a new ½ mile longer segment of trail on Little Kennesaw to
replace the dangerous old trail that went straight up the cliffs. The club has
also done a number of minor trail re-routes, built a new causeway in the
vicinity of JohnWardCreek and performed remedial
maintenance in several areas of the park. We have committed 1,800 hours as part
of a recently approved NPS Challenge grant to replace the board walk across JohnWardCreek,
destroyed in 2005 by hurricane Dennis, with a new weather proof horse capable
bridge. Future plans include building a new 6 mile trail segment that opens
up access to previously inaccessible Union Positions. A large part
of the maintenance effort is devoted to closing, and revegetating trail
segments that have been abandoned because of environmental and safety issues
that render them unsustainable. This effort is complicated by a few
determined users that insist that the old trails must be used.
We have 6
dedicated, trained and certified trail crew leaders who are experienced in the
latest technologies for designing and building safe, sustainable, scenic, and
challenging trails that can support the volume of traffic, and the variety of
users that visit the park. Eight additional people are currently in training as
crew leaders.
The Trail
Club currently meets once a month on the 2nd Saturday, and works
from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The typical turnout is only 5 to 10
Volunteers. If you want to support the park; if you want to be able to
use it as you like; If you don’t want to see the park destroyed; then you
should be volunteering to help with the maintenance. Park Service Budgets
have continued to decrease. There will not be additional budget or
manpower provided by the National Park Service to support the park.
Pressure on the park from visitation and trampling will continue to increase as
the population in the surrounding community continues to increase.
When the
park was created back in the 1930’s people in Atlanta asked why anyone would
want to have a park so far out in the sticks. Within the last few months,
the last piece of undeveloped land adjacent to the park was sold. So
there will never be an opportunity for the park to grow. Today based on
discussions with National Park Service staff members, the park sees more than
1.2 million visitors a year while more than 250,000 vehicles a day pass through
the park on the six roads that transect the land. KennesawMountain’s 3,000 acres
represent probably the largest green space in Metropolitan Atlanta.
By way of
comparison the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail
estimates that it sees approximately 2 million hikers a year which compares to
Kennesaw’s 1.2 million mixed use visitor’s per year. The wear
and tear on the park is much more concentrated at Kennesaw than on the
AT. Besides, the trampling effects of all the runners, hikers and horse
back riders, the trails suffer from poor design, lack of capacity, and weather
/ water erosion from storms. The AT is supported by a network of trail
maintaining clubs in all the states it passes through working in conjunction
with the land managers from the various state and federal agencies. KennesawMountain only has the
Kennesaw Mountain Trail Club.
