View Umstead State Park in a larger map

The N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation says it is preparing to start work on a $370,000 project to expand parking and improve trails and a road at Umstead State Park in West Raleigh.

The Sycamore Bike and Bridle Trailhead will be closed for the construction, starting in mid-October.

The improvements will:

* Add 50 parking spaces to the park visitor center, which has 38 spaces now. The parking lot sometimes is crowded with runners and cyclists who use Umstead trails.
* Upgrade and smooth the one-mile gravel road from the main paved park road to the Sycamore trailhead.
* Separate 18 equestrian trailer parking spaces from a 46-space parking area for other users at the Sycamore trailhead.
* Eliminate the one-way loop road around the trailhead and link the trailhead to the multi-use trail system with a new 1,000-foot trail section. ... [MORE]

The Raleigh City Council on Tuesday will again grapple with petitions from neighborhoods on the fringes of Umstead State Park who want to keep park patrons from parking cars in front of their houses.

Umstead access advocates have favored a compromise approach -- ban parking only on one side of the street -- for the Trenton Woods neighborhood. Some council members are ready to go along with a request from folks around the corner in Manorbrook, who want to ban all parking by folks who do not reside in the neighborhood.

These conflicts won't go away soon. Umstead is North Carolina's most popular urban park, but state parks officials have had a hard time adjusting policies and precedents steeped in a rural tradition.

Park patrons say the state Department of Transportation made things worse on gravel roads near popular neighborhood park access points. Graylyn Road ,,, [MORE]

The state Division of Parks and Recreation toyed for a year with the idea of opening a third automobile entrance to Umstead State Park (at Graylyn Drive), and it received a few hundred comments expressing sharp opinions on both sides.

The Raleigh City Council's Public Works Committee struggled this year with calls to erect "No Parking" signs in residential neighborhoods where Umstead users leave their cars There were sharp, competing opinions here, too.

State and city agencies helped create these problems. The Umstead maintenance gate at the corner of Trenton and Reedy Creek Roads became an even more appealing destination for park users after the city and the state extended the Reedy Creek Greenway west from the NC Museum of Art -- and stopped it there. The closest parking lot is two miles away at the art museum.

NCDOT banned parking on the state roads outside the Graylyn and Reedy Creek Road maintenance gates -- after it justified paving Graylyn by using high traffic counts that had been generated by those same parked cars.

Both the city and the state are wary of taking steps that will set uncontrollable precedents, cost money and perhaps create new sets of environmental, legal and political problems.

So the parks division refused this week to open the Graylyn gate. And the city council said ... [MORE]

Runners and cyclists hoping for easier access to the state's busiest urban state park lost ground today:

State officials said they won't turn dead-end Graylyn Drive into a third automobile entrance to Umstead State Park.

And the Raleigh City Council prepared to post more No Parking signs on neighborhood streets near an Umstead gate on Reedy Creek Road. [Update 5 p.m. Tuesday: The council delayed action on the No Parking proposal, sending the matter back to committee for more deliberation.]

Lewis Ledford, the state parks director, announced a plan to improve a bumpy gravel road inside the park that provides access from the Glenwood Avenue entrance to the Sycamore Bike and Bridle Trailhead (see map). The road will be paved when funds are available, and the trailhead parking lot will be expanded.

He rejected an option, floated a year ago, to let park patrons drive to the same trailhead on what is now a maintenance road with a locked gate at the end of Graylyn Drive off Ebenezer Church Road.

“Our overriding philosophy must be to minimize the development footprint at Umstead as one way to protect the wild and natural landscape of this state park,” Ledford said in a news release. ... [MORE]

248, 74 and 15:05:03 are just some of the numbers from the weekend's race.

Here's a hike I'm guessing you haven't done: Umstead State Park to Carter-Finley Stadium. (Unless you've done it before on a Rod Broadbelt marathon hike.) On the face of it, that might sound like an odd hike. It's not. It's just unusual ...

At its meeting Thursday morning, the Raleigh City Council's Public Works Committee will discuss a proposed parking ban on the streets of Trenton Woods, one of the nice new West Raleigh subdivisions springing up on the outskirts of Umstead State Park.

Trenton Woods is on Trenton Road near its intersection with Reedy Creek Road, and that's close to a park maintenance road that has become a popular neighborhood access point for folks who bike, hike, run and walk in the park.

The council agreed in February to have the committee reconsider the request after some park patrons protested that it would make it even harder -- and it's getting harder all the time, already -- simply to find a place to leave your car so you can visit the park.

The meeting is in Room 201, City Council Chamber, Raleigh Municipal Building, 222 West
Hargett Street, Raleigh. For information call 996-3040 (City Clerk’s Office).

Up for a long venture in the woods this Saturday? At a fast pace, a really fast pace?

Marathon hike leader Rod Broadbelt reports that his schedule of really long monthly hikes — the hikes aren't quite that long; he conducts them monthly — at Umstead State Park is such. (Note: all hikes depart at 8 a.m. from the Umstead parking lot off Harrison Avenue and I-40. )

Saturday: "Wilderness Hike," a 10-mile, mostly off-trail hike. A return by 1:15 p.m.is expected. Cautions Rod: "Wear sturdy footwear and long pants as we will have steep and slippery banks down and up, fallen trees to get over, under or around and maybe some briers."

April 4: Carter-Finley Stadium Hike, 13.5 miles.

May 2: Umstead to Lake Crabtree mountain biking trails and back to Umstead, 14 miles.

June 6: Approximately 12 miles, no off-trail.

Questions? Email Rod at rbroadbelt@nc.rr.com or call 363-6611before 7 p.m.

What opening our state parks earlier means to North Carolina's role in the global economy. Sorta.