Washington County is making substantial improvements to Mingo Creek Park with the installation of a new trail alongside the main road in the park. Most of the trail is now paved with 4 new bridges to be installed as soon as weather permits.
Bicycling on the main park road has been unsafe for years with the lack of berms, sharp corners, limited sight distances (see photo 1) and no speed limit enforcement. It was safer to ride the huge berms along route 88. Cost of the improvements will amount to $546,000.
It’s money well spent considering that hundreds of people will use the trail all year-round. Compare that to the cost of the Aquatorium renovation which will cost $1,200,000 for a structure which is only used about three times a year when it isn’t under water or covered in mud.
Here’s the problem with the trail; first, they’ve run the thing through the off-leash dog area. So now we have to contend with bikes, joggers and roller bladers flying past our dogs. Did any of the idiots in charge of this park ever notice that dogs like to chase shit?
It gets worse; they’ve connected the off-leash site to the PLAYGROUND!!! There was a woman pushing a stroller past my dog last week. It’s January, what the hell do they think is going to happen in June when the stupid people drag their loud screaming kids into the dog area?!
And this is just the beginning of the problems that dog owners will now face in this park. We make up 80% of the people who use this facility 12 months out of the year and they give us garbage areas to take our dogs and then screw that up. This whole state sucks.
This is great news! Mingo is one of my favorite parks. Western PA has the best public parks. They are real parks as opposed to the faux parks found in many cities that are just soccer fields.
I adore Mingo Park and am glad to see that improvements are being made despite the continued budget cuts and freezes at the state government level. The parks of SWPA are such a treasure! We are fortunate to benefit from the rich landscape and geography unique to the area.
Yeah, it’s a great park. I’d be interested to do a little research on the history of the area. Lots of activity in that area even as far back as the 1770′s.
Re Mingo Park, Pa: Yes, conditions have gone downhill in a major way in our beloved off leash area. I detached a retina in August, had surgery, and could not go back until October. I was horrified to see the trail cutting across the bottom of the entire field in our area. I sent an email to the head of the parks, expressing my concern over clashes with hikers and bikers because our dogs are off leash. So many people are hostile toward us, even though are dogs are under control. People without dogs are now hanging out in our area, and tell us we had better have our dogs under control. Mr. Garrison from the parks office told me they are putting a fence up to contain us on the hill. We can no longer even let our dogs loose to go for water in the stream that runs along the now blacktop trail into our area. We were told we cannot let them off leash until we get up on the hill. There are two open fields in our area, with a tree line splitting them. There is one cut out in the trees to pass from one field to the other. It gets used by everyone, the grass is worn off and dangerously muddy. We try to hang on to brush until we get to the grass again. On January 30 I fell in the mud there and broke my leg in two places. Had surgery and will be down until around April. I contacted the park office again, expressing my thoughts on conditions there. So many people have fallen there. He claimed ignorance of the conditions, but promised gravel there and more cut throughs to improve safety. Nothing yet, three weeks later, according to friends. Also, horse people did a lot of work putting in trails there, under supervision of park officials, spend a lot of time keeping trails clear, and deserve to ride them .. Without the horse people, some trails, especially the orange perimeter and blue trails, would not exist. I get the feeling we will be forced out of the off leash area eventually.
I’ve been assured their next step is to put up the fence division to keep all parties safe from each other in the leash-free zone. We really are the patrons that use the park year round and our dogs have grown to be great friends w/one another too. It would be fabulous to see our trails graveled, drained properly and expanded to include all the ones up the hill, behind the sign, so our faithful friends have someplace to hike and play with each other while their humans don’t endanger themselves in Mingo Mud Park
It’s the best place for dogs and their humans that I’ve seen anywhere in the country!!! It would be great to have the trails others toiled over to lay and maintain w/park personnel maintained and kept cleared for all the regular users–horses, riders, dogs, hikers and I guess the bikers will be on the pavement now.
Thanks to Mr. Garrison and the staff at Mingo Park for bringing in gravel for the cut thru in the off leash area. Hopefully this will keep other people from breaking legs in the mud there. Two weeks into my down time now ..staples out and hard cat on 2/21. Month of PT after that ..then hopefully back to hiking with th Boys soon ..