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North Central Arkansas Master Naturalist
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Written by Dwan Garrison
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Here is how we got there..... In the spring literally thousands of school kids descend on the park. Park interpreter Julie Lovett schedules groups, some times hundreds of students, everyday during April and May. The buses bring the kids to the pavilion where they are divided into manageable groups of 30 or so. The groups rotate through several activities one of which is a hike. In the past there wasn't a trail near by, so Julie would take them just around the area, but she really wanted the kids to be able to go "into the woods."
So in January, the NCAMN Trail Patrol cleared a new trail about a quarter mile long for Julie to use with the school groups. The Marion county forester, Stephen Short came out and identified trees all along the trail and at the end of this trail are steps that lead up to a "hidden path" through a wild flower area. But there remained one deep ditch and another shallow one that needed bridges to make the trail really suitable for hiking. And that's how the Bridge Building day came to be. Now thousands of kids will get to go on a hike into the woods when they visit the park. |  |  | 
| They will learn the names of some of the trees and wildflowers they find there, and they'll cross a couple of really cool bridges too. |  |  |
For some more great pictures of this day long Bridge Building Project, please visit the photo gallery at this link. To view a video of the bridge building click here.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 28 March 2010 15:05 |
North Central chapter 