Welcome!
Welcome back to Outings! a blog series of off-season outdoors adventures. If this is your first foray into this series, I suggest you start here. If you’re an old hand at this, then let’s get on with it!
Bonesteele County Park
I drove by this park for the first time late last summer. It was all dry grass, crispy and uninviting, but I took note because of its promising location. It’s not actually in our city, but just outside the city limits. Removed enough to seem promising for a mid-winter hike alternative.
Calling this a park seems like a stretch. It’s a field with a copse of conifers at one side. Now, it’s a very big field, and a pretty substantial copse. But there are basically no amenities – just a single bathroom and two picnic tables. Even the trails themselves were less maintained than they were use-hewn into something like a route.
The trails are more hike-like than a walk, with some nice, gradual climbs, a drop into the woods via a narrow, muddy track, and then a climb back out to the field. The field itself is giant, and has an exterior loop as well as a center-cut through trail. I’m using the word “trail” here generously. It was all muddy, molehills and vague paths.
With the wind and the rain, and the overall moody vibe of the day, it gave me very Victorian-maiden-walking-the-moors vibe, which I LOVED. That said, despite its proximity to town, it feels very remote, and I would not walk this park on my own. Even just me and Simon might cause some anxiety. This is a buddy up situation, y’all.
Stats & Specs
This is the part where I break down the park by the numbers!
Park Specs:
- Distance: 0.68 miles. We did the main forest trail and then half of the field loop. I’m guessing you’d get close to a mile if you did the whole thing.
- Elevation Gain: Unknown. There’s a bit of a hill on the back half of the loop, but FitBit only tracks elevation if you use the “Hike” tracker, not “Walk”.
- Hours: Sunrise to Sunset
- Environment:
This park is quite big, the front half wooded, with some boulders. The back half is all windswept field, surrounded by properties with considerable acreage. You can see a couple houses, but they’re a ways off. Even though you can hear the nearby freeway, the park feels fairly remote and isolated. Also, and this might be the horror writer in me internalizing the weather and isolation, but there were several spots that just felt… creepy. The trail opens up to a flat space ringed with boulders and large rocks. It’s all muddy and mossy and something about it felt… uncomfortable to me. And then, further down the wooded trail, was a tree that had partially broken, and the way it hanged looked like a portal or altar, all coated in moss. That one was spooky but also cool. This place felt witchy to me in a way that unsettled and made me happy all at once. Remember, I am a horror writer. - Condition: Honestly? Not great. I didn’t venture into the bathroom, so I can’t vouch for that. But the trails are not clearly marked nor well-kept. There’s dog shit EVERYWHERE (according to Trevor – I didn’t notice that much…) and between the mud and the molehills, we were both convinced one of us would fall before we made it back to the car. This is a country park y’all – expect the bare minimum.
- Popularity: We only saw two vehicles, one in the lot when we arrived and a different one when we returned. We did not see any people on our walk. We did see an abandoned tent at the bottom corner of the field, suggesting someone experiencing homelessness had camped out there at some point. It was a pretty nice spot, to be honest. Point is, for the season, it’s deadass quiet and a little weird. See that part about not wanting to go there alone.
- Uses: Walking. I guess you could have a little picnic at one of the tables, but the field is on a gentle grade so it isn’t great for sports. This is a spot to chill and spend some time in nature without trekking too far out of town.
My Stats:
- Duration: 25 minutes
- Pace: 36’20”
- Average Heart Rate: 111 BPM
- Max Heart Rate: 130 BPM
- Active Zone Minutes: 7 Zone Minutes
- Steps: 1,828
- Calories Burned: 172
My Gear:
- Columbia Windbreaker/Rain Jacket in Teal
- Mystery Columbia Pullover with Throat Zipper in Black Heather
- Adidas GalaxyTrail Trail Runners
- Fleece-lined leggings, black.
Trevor’s Gear:
- Columbia
Windbreaker/Rain Jacket, Orange and Gray - Jeans
- Nike tennis shoes, model unknown, blue and gold
Simon’s Gear:
- RuffWear Front Range Dog Harness, in Aurora Teal
- RuffWear Knot-a-Leash Rope dog leash, in Aurora Teal
Suggested Gear:
- Beanie!
- I forgot mine!!!
Okay…. I know my writing thus far would make it seem like I’d give a lower rating, but I actually really like this spot for an off-season hike. It’s close, it’s quiet and isolated, and it has enough elevation gain and room to get a decent heart rate increase. I think this a great hike alternative when I simply don’t have time or energy to get out of town.
Yeah…. she’s crazy. This park sucks. There’s dog shit everywhere, seemingly homeless folks camping out, and the trails aren’t really trails. They’re just places people have walked enough to make it seem like a trail. There are no amenities, nothing to recommend it, it’s a field someone donated and the county was like, “well, we’ll call it a park!” Maybe it’s nicer in the spring?
SO MANY SNIFFS!
Trev has a point, but Simon and I are easy to please. Just give us the semblance of a trail where no one will bother us, add a couple hills, and we’re good to go! We’ll come back to try it out in the warmer, drier months, maybe with Bolt and Yuki.
That's All, Folks!
I’m wondering if we’re running out of top tier, lesser known parks in town. There’s still plenty to explore, don’t you worry! I just worry that we’ve done all the best ones already.
There’s only one way to find out, I guess…
I’ll be back on Monday with the usual Goals Summary post.
Until then, Blogland!
BZ
