Vermilion County Trail Alliance

The Trails @ Harrison Park West

Harrison Park is by far Danville’s largest park at ~235 acres. Currently, it is almost exclusively known for being a golf course. However, in times past, the west side of the North Fork river has been used for hiking and picnicking, among other activities. Today there are no facilities of any sort on the property beyond an access road and some paths that appear as if they may be used for illegal hunting. The exception to this is some small bridges and other hardscapes from the mid-30s, and some structures in the old Girl Scout Camp Trefoil. Some of these are from as far back as the 1940s, but some are newer and many are in good to great shape for their age and maintenance.

Harrison Park is centrally located and is already surrounded by all sorts of activity as recorded by Strava, for walkers, runners, and bikers. Affording these people an “official” path into and around the beautiful hills to the west is an obvious expansion opportunity. Attractions like this would invite more traffic to Harrison and raise it’s profile, even among potential golfers. Harrison is also located such that it’s development would impact a wide-range of households, and not just higher incomes.

Walking vs. Cycling activity as posted to Strava. Note the heavy activity in the Lincoln Park to Harrison Park area.

Additionally, West Harrison is quite close to Kickapoo State Park. This is notable because, according to Singletracks.com, the Kickapoo Mountain Bike Trails are already the #1 destination in Illinois for MTB, with estimates as high as 20k riders per year. By usage, this puts Kickapoo in the top 10% of trails worldwide. Installation of a bike park, skills facilities, and flow trails on West Harrison property would offer a much needed complement to the current trail system at Kickapoo, and would make Vermilion County a true weekend destination almost immediately. Also important to note, the #1 MTB destination in Indiana is Griffin Bike Park in Terre Haute, a mere one hour away from Danville.

Vision

VCTA’s vision for West Harrison is to first restore existing historical infrastructure, excluding the facilities of the abandoned Girl Scout Camp for the initial kickoff (but anticipating eventual restoration of these as well). There are several points of interest that lie abandoned in the deep, wooded ravines to the northwest of the golf course that we would love to draw attention to once again. Ultimately, we see potential for a lighted, ADA accessible section of walking path with stunning views of the ravine network to the north side of the property.

Additionally, there is already and access road to the top of the ridge line on the west side of the river, and a path cut along the ridge. We envision these as multi-use paths for all traffic and ADA accessible. The ridge path especially has potential for breathtaking views of the river and course below, and could be lighted as well at some point in the future.

New Trail

For new trail construction, we’d like to add a multipurpose perimeter path for hikers, runners, and bikers to get the project moving and seeing some use. Ultimately we envision being able to build ~3 trail miles to the site, the use of which would likely be mostly mixed, with some discipline specific sections as well. Prior iterations of Harrison Park featured up to 9 miles of trail, so we feel 3 miles is a reasonable initial goal.

However, our primary attraction at this site (beyond the gorgeous scenery) is intended to be bike oriented. We want to build something a little different from Kickapoo; a “flow” trail. Flow trails are fast and jumpy, featuring interesting technical sections that challenge all skill levels. To do this, we plan to utilize the topography of the site, building this flow trail with the landscape using ravines and ridge lines. We also intend to make the main trail tread a little more resilient to moisture than nearby Kickapoo so that it can be ridden in a more diverse set of weather conditions.

Bike Park

Additionally, the hillside topography is such that we envision its use as a true “bike park” along the lines of nearby Griffin Bike Park in Terre Haute. While this use would be phased and not happen all at once, we anticipate the installation of pre-built wooden features, multiple “line” options, and much more. This would be guaranteed to make West Harrison truly unique, and a much needed contrast to Kickapoo.

Hiking

We absolutely do not intend to neglect hikers/runners though, and these interest groups are absolutely essential to our long-term success. Therefore, a hiking/running path will be developed alongside and integrated with all of these bike specific plans so that we build something truly useful to a wide variety of trail users.

Linking Chateau

One hundred fifty acres of city owned property sits nearby in the Chateau Estates area. It is seperated from the north side of Harrison Park property by just 4 landowners. VCTA intends to secure trail usage rights across these tracts so that the two properties can be linked together by trail. This would lead to the availability of a recreation area of over 300+ acres being accessible in just 5-10 minutes from most places in Danville, including the busy North Vermilion commerce center and Downtown Danville.

With the addition of Chateau Estates property and the additional mileage it affords, along with it’s incredible lake, river, and ravine views, we can easily see the possibility for ~8+ miles of simply stunning trail for mixed use, with lots of potential for dedicated discipline segments such as hike/run only.

Status

VCTA is proceeding with survey and preliminary mapping of potential trail corridors, with the goal of having a comprehensive plan to present to local officials in spring 2022. Progress largely depends on if the City feels there is adequate public demand for these and other types of facilities. West Harrison Park has sit essentially idle for 46 years, so VCTA is aware of the potential timeline for the project. Public support would go a long way to move it along more quickly.

Action