Pat Brown
Contributing Writer
Walkers, runners and bikers who use Wildwood Park in Radford need only to glance around to be reminded of the awesome power of nature.
That’s because trees huge and small were downed by snow and wind that moved through the city as winter gave way to spring.
Fortunately, the biggest tree fell parallel to the walkway and bike path. Its massive trunk lies near the park’s subterranean entrance, a big culvert that runs under Main Street and connects Wildwood to Bisset Park. The huge tree‘s branches tore down a section of fence that had just been repaired.
Other trees came to rest in the park’s stream. Yet another fell across a steep section of the park’s quiet wildflower path, forcing visitors to turn around and double back or scramble over the tree trunk. Amazingly, the wooden bridges in the park were spared. One observation deck lost a few boards to the storms, but those have been replaced.
“Hopefully you will see those trees out of there in the next month or so,” said David Ridpath, city manager.
But the task is not easy. Cutting large trees in unnatural positions on steep hillsides or in the streambed is beyond the capability of volunteers and even of town maintenance workers. Ridpath has contacted three tree removal contractors to look at which trees can be cut up and moved out and which ones cannot. He’s waiting to hear from them, he said.
“Some are deep in the woods,” said Ridpath, who noted the park encompasses 52 acres. “And there are rules about what (equipment) we can take in there. It’s a protected riparian forest (a forest with a stream running through it).” He said gators are about the biggest piece of hauling equipment he could send in.
“We always love to take on some help,” said Ridpath when asked about the possibility of volunteers being solicited to remove piles of smaller branches and brush.
In fact, such a volunteer organization exists. Pathways, the group that was instrumental in developing bike pathways around town, including the one inside Wildwood, meets each fall to rake leaves and take out dead branches along the edges of the trail. They call the event “Rake Leaves and Eat Pie.”
But leaf-raking season is several months away.
Nancy Kent, who walks to and through the park daily, agreed that heavy late snows and strong winds were hard on the park. Spring storms “took down trees all over town,” she recalled.
The biggest downed tree at the park seemed to a have large number of rocks in its root ball, she noted. “With time and erosion, eventually trees just outgrow their space.”
The paved trails are clear, Kent noted, and the damage has not interrupted the park’s twice-monthly wildlife classroom sessions, or even a recent encampment.
“The Bike Virginia folks traveled through the park O.K. and camped.” She said there were shower trucks and food trucks and tents all along the path. The group stopped in late June on their way to Claytor Lake.
“The park is still being used,” she said. “The creek doesn’t move through as well,” since downed trees are taking up some of the stream bed space.
She said it is not an option to cut up a tree in the park and put the pieces into the stream to rot. “It’s not allowed by law.”
“The city has only so many funds to put into something like this,” she said of the park’s tree removal needs.
“It’s still a wonderful little park,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see parents out with their children.” At Wildwood, she said, nature is accessible. “You can get into nature quickly without having to travel.”
