Photos by Todd Gill, Flyer staff
City officials are inviting residents to help celebrate the completion of the Mount Kessler trailhead project at a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday, July 14.
The trailhead is located at 2600 Judge Cummings Road, west of Cato Springs Road (Arkansas 265) and Interstate 49.
Staff graphic / Google Maps
The project included construction a gravel parking lot with a temporary one-mile soft-surface path that leads to a nearly eight-mile network of hiking and off-road biking trails atop the mountain.
The city recently closed on a deal with Chambers Bank to buy the 328-acre Mount Kessler woodland, as part of an effort to preserve the area while adding to the 200 acres of city property where a massive regional park is planned.
Jeremy Pate, the city’s Development Services director, said a permanent trailhead will be built once the new regional park takes shape.
For now, the soft-surface trail will lead residents from the east boundary of the park land through fields and trees past a clearing where a former landfill is being capped.
The trail, Pate said, will provide a safer route to Mount Kessler than the nearby dirt road construction crews will use while building the park.
We visited the site Wednesday morning and grabbed a few photos. Check ’em out below.
