It’s My Park Day - Fall 2022
The Austin Parks Foundation holds two “It’s My Park Day” events per year where local organizations can volunteer to adopt an area of park land for cleanup and maintenance. Austin Ridge Riders (ARR) organized a cleanup in the Little Walnut Creek Greenbelt in East Austin and brought together over 30 volunteers to remove trash from two abandoned camps off 51st street.
The Little Walnut Creek Greenbelt is over 230 acres of yet-to-be developed green space primed for beautiful singletrack trails. The mountain biking community has long been perhaps the most active group of trail users in any trail system, and surely the most dedicated when it comes to building and maintaining them. Our community hopes that when the time comes to develop this land into useable park space, ARR will have the privilege of working with the city to create a multi-use trail system that includes designated “bike only” machine-built flow trails; something that is missing in public spaces in our city.
The smile says it all; it feels good to make an impact.
The morning was chilly which was nice, because foraging in the woods for garbage is a “as much clothing as I can wear” sort of thing. Cullen McMorrow, ARR Trail Coordinator was there long before we were to roll out 13 wheelbarrows and all the garbage bags, gloves, grabber poles, and various other tools. Cheyenne Dolin, ARR Marketing Director was there to answer any questions volunteers had and made sure our efforts were well documented. Community engagement is critical to make sure our voice is heard, and Cheyenne is doing a phenomenal job sharing our story.
I joined Cullen and Garett Gray for a quick tour of the cleanup site to trim some brush and mark hiking paths to the garbage, and then it was all hands on deck for the rest of the morning. The small army grabbed their bags and wheelbarrows and made their way into the trees, removing truck tires, bicycle frames, automotive parts, and all sorts of rubbish; we even found an entire dinner plate set!
Austin Parks Foundation provides resources for these volunteer events, and were kind enough to deliver a dumpster, which was nearly full by the time we wrapped up only a couple of hours after we began. We did find another camp with even more trash, and so there will need to be another cleanup day. Hopefully in the coming months, perhaps years, ARR will be able to work with the city to develop a new trail system for riders and even hikers to enjoy. The dirt out here is amazing, and the topography leaves a lot of options for fun features and flow.
Thanks to all the folks who came out to volunteer, to Austin Ridge Riders for working to create space for us to ride and Austin Parks Foundation for providing the resources to accomplish this. Stay tuned for the next “It’s My Park Day”, which will be the first saturday in March.
Here is a copy of the most recent community master plan for Little Walnut Creek Greenbelt.
