Beaver Creek Park approaching peak season

With Beaver Creek Park usage reaching seasonal peak, Hill County Park Board members discussed Monday during their monthly meeting monitoring sites for a long-term ecological study, the headway of an in-progress walking trail and a customized fire pit ring project, among others topics.

“Our busiest month is upon us. June was absolutely crazy,” Park Superintendent Chad Edgar told board members Monday.

Board Chair Steve Mariani likened the park activity to a “beehive.”

Ursula Brese of Friends of Beaver Creek Park told members about the first of 16 customized fire pit rings that was recently built at Hagener Campground. The pit ring was built by Bobby Bradshaw, she said. The two engravings on the metal rings says “Friends of Beaver Park,” a tip-of-the-hat to the park advocate group. Brese said the decision hasn’t been completely solidified, but they want to put all 16 fire pit rings in one camp.

Hiking and outdoor activity group Havre Trails director Lindsey Bennett told board members that work on the trail between Rotary Falls and Bear Paw Lake spillway has begun.

Bennett said today that the group is working with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to come up with a memorandum of understanding about putting a parking area within the state-managed area around the lake.

Lou Hagener announced an additional 13 sites in which the long-term ecological study would be conducted have been selected. Montana State University-Northern professor Terri Hildebrand and 20 students will collect data from the sites for a prolonged period of time. The research would focus on grass and brush as well as soil and climate, and progress, or lack of, over a years-long time period.

A pavilion, with an enclosed chimney has been completed on campground 39, Edgar said. The members of the former Railroad Pagers group put in all the work, Egdar said, praising the group for their craftsmanship and effort.

Edgar also updated board members on the effort to erase the graffiti off an outhouse on the south end of the park.

“It was not successful by any means, but it doesn’t look as bad,” he said.

The reason the graffiti is hard to remove, Egdar said, is because the outhouse walls are made of pebbles, and the graffiti is ingrained  deep into the grooves.

Edgar told board members the stand up paddle board festival SUPfest, a two-day event that centered around events on a stand up paddle board June 24 and 25 at Beaver Creek Reservoir, was a complete success.

“Awesome event. That is exactly the kind of event we want to encourage in the park,” Edgar said.

Event organizers Tony and Cortney Filler have said they would like to turn SUPfest into an annual event.