Wednesday, Jan. 1. Hikes this year focused on improvements made to the Overlook Trail
by members of the Conservations Corps. (Nathan Countryman)
More than 160 people participated in a First Day Hike at Palisades-Kepler State Park in rural Mount Vernon. It was the fifth annual First Day hike held at the state park.
This year’s hike utilized the Lodge Trail and Overlook Trails at the park, which highlighted some of the improvements that were made to the Palisades Kepler State Park this year.
One of those improvements was installing new railings and bridges along Overlook Trail at the park.
Dakota Bonelli was one of the workers with the Driftless Conservation Corps who worked on the installation of the new railings.
“Our work began in March and continued through mid-June,” Bonelli said.
The crew was working with black locust as the lumber for the fence railings.
“That’s a very solid wood, which meant we had a lot of drill bits that were broken in drilling holes,” Bonelli said.
Bonelli said that the project did get pushed longer due to the heavy rain this spring that delayed some of the work from happening.
The project initially had five workers with the conservation Corps helping, but eventually was only three workers who were around to finish work on the railings.
With the new railings along bridges and the overlook areas, it replaced far more aging infrastructure.
Gail Brown, president of the Friends of the Palisades-Kepler State Park, this was one of the projects the group identified as a need in the park to be done this year.
The Friends group helped fund improvements with the installation of new fire pits at campground sites in the park, installation of new water pumps in the park, and helped fund some of the needed stair replacements on Cedar Cliff Trail. The first day hike also concluded a year full of activities at the park that the Friends have helped lead. The Friends group also provided concessions at the end of the first-year hike at the Lodge, which also includes a fire in the lodge for s’mores and for hikers to warm up.
With roughly 160 on the trails at one time, the groups were split into roughly 70 people to traverse the trails. With ground temperatures still warm in the winter and recent rains, the footing on some areas of the trails were a little worrisome.