Mountwood Park installs new signs, kiosks
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WAVERLY -- Mountwood Park has partnered with the Mountaineer Trail Network (MTN) to bring updated and enhanced signage to Mountwood Park.
Partner organizations include the River Valley Mountain Bike Association and the Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, Wood County Commission, Appalachian Regional Commission, Downstream Strategies and Friends of the Cheat.
Starting in the summer of 2023, MTN worked with the partners to bring this signage to life. The project undertook a detailed mapping initiative to depict the trail system and all of their intersections in fall 2023 and then moved on to the design phase for signage in the winter 2023.
During the design phase, Andrew Walker who is the executive director of MTN, said that MTN and partners found a way to create standardized markings for the trail difficulties as well as trail descriptions with the hope to create a better user experience.
"It follows, kind of, the National Ski system ... it's been tailor-made for mountain bike and hiking trails," Walker said. "There's a one- to two-sentence description of each trail. They're also identified now as green, blue, black and you have one double black trail, which we mark as red on the path."
Walker hopes that when users come to the trail system and look at maps or kiosks it is easier for them to self-identify which trail is appropriate for their skill level.
Approximately 245 intersections received trail markers, two kiosks at the pumphouse and marina parking lots, 12 smaller map kiosks within the trail system at key intersections and updated panels on the existing kiosk at Mountwood Park's main parking lot.
Looking to the future, MTN has plans to unveil a $20,000 grant opportunity that the park plans to apply toward another series of enhancements to Mountwood Park through infrastructure updates that include change rooms, water bottle fill stations, bike repair stations and benches in the park system.
Mark Lewis, CEO and president of the Greater Parkersburg CVB, hopes the updates will give new life to not only the park, but bring in revenue for the county.
"We're bringing our trails to national standards," Lewis said, "When people come from anywhere in the country and ride these trail and see the signage, they know that they're in a professionally maintained place ... so this is going to be a great benefit for not only the residents of the area, but for our tourist visitors and it's going to help generate hotel/motel tax revenue, which helps us out. It's going to generate revenue for associated businesses."
Gwen Sour can be reached at gsour@newsandsentinel.com