Celebrations planned to dedicate new trail
COEUR D’ALENE – A daylong party with free food and events is planned next Saturday to celebrate the dedication of the Prairie Trail – a bicycle and walking path connecting several Coeur d’Alene parks, schools and the Centennial Trail.
Organized bike rides are planned between the events, which are being held at three city parks linked by the new route.
Coeur d’Alene’s first Parks Day Celebration begins at 9 a.m. at Bluegrass Park in the Coeur d’Alene Place neighborhood.
A pancake feed, disc golf demonstration, bicycle rodeo, helmet giveaways, water fun at the park’s splash pad and a bounce castle are planned.
At noon, the party moves to Ramsey Park where free hotdogs will be served.
Tree-planting demonstrations and tree giveaways are planned. Games include Ultimate Frisbee, tennis, volleyball and horseshoes. Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game will have six live owls at the park.
The Parks Day Celebration moves to Riverstone Park at 3 p.m. where events include Dutch oven cooking, entertainment including live music and the Sorensen Jugglers, a remote control sailboat demonstration, arts and crafts activities and
A bounce castle will be set up at each park and prize drawings will be held.
Those who visit all three parks during Parks Day will be entered into a grand prize drawing to be held at Riverstone Park in the evening. Prizes include a Coeur d’Alene Parasail ride, a Coeur d’Alene Lake cruise for six which includes dinner, a Sail Marine Cruise for six and a ride on a Brooks Seaplane.
The five-mile-long Prairie Trail runs along abandoned Union Pacific rail line. The property was purchased by the North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation and the project was a joint-effort by the foundation, the city of Coeur d’Alene and the Lake City Development Corporation.
Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Mike Gridley has been involved in the project from the beginning, when Union Pacific abandoned the rail line in 2003.
The Prairie Trail runs from Huetter Road to the Riverstone development providing connections to the three parks featured in the Parks Day Celebration. It also runs past the site of the Kroc Center.
“It really is a speedy link for people who want to get someplace on a bicycle,” Gridley said. “From Coeur d’Alene Place or some of those neighborhoods, you could be downtown, to North Idaho College and beyond as fast on a bike as you could in a car.”