Forest Hill Park gets a makeover

Plant containers in hand, Mark Stevens and his 12-year-old son, Ken, went to work yesterday morning covering some of Forest Hill Park's older trails with leaves and other debris.

The park is two blocks from their home and in some ways is like an extended backyard to them.

"We use it almost every weekend," Mark Stevens said, whether for biking, hiking or geocaching, a game in which participants use global positioning systems to locate hidden items. He has lived in Richmond for 19 years, he said, and in that time has seen a transformation in the park.

"It's come a long way," he said. Where people used to avoid it, "now everybody's down here on the weekends and during the week."

The park was getting a makeover of sorts yesterday. Representatives from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the city's Parks and Recreation Department and Friends of Forest Hill Park joined volunteers from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Richmond and local high schools to build bridges, dig out new trails and cover up the old ones.

Nathan Burrell, trails manager for the city, said the trail system through the park needed to be redeveloped. Trails built years ago didn't do much for the park's ecosystem, he said. They ran up and down the hillsides so water, debris and leaves would follow those paths and go straight into the lake or streams and then out to the James River.

Volunteers yesterday were digging new trails that were built into the mountain. Others, such as Stevens and his son, covered up the old ones and planted new trees and plants.

Burrell said about $3,000 worth of new plants had been lost within the park's environment over the years. Yesterday's focus was the park's east side, from the back of the former Patrick Henry Elementary School to Riverside Drive.

"These folks own this," Burrell said of the volunteers working in the park. "They've put their sweat equity in, and they're making it better."

Contact Holly Prestidge at (804) 649-6945 or hprestidge@timesdispatch.com .