Trail Manager: Western Gateway Recreation & Park District | Contact (530)432-1990 / office@westerngatewaypark.com
Length: 1 mile
Altitude change: 0′-10′
Trail Surface: Natural Earth
Rules: Dogs on leash; no horses on Fitness Trail; clean up after dogs; exit park by dusk.
Trailhead: To reach the park from Grass Valley, take Highway 20 west 5.6 miles and turn left at the light onto Penn Valley Drive. Follow it 0.6 mile to the center of town. At the stop sign, turn right and go 0.9 mile (this is still Penn Valley Drive) to the park’s main gate on your right. Enter the park, then immediately turn right and follow the one-way road to the large parking lot at the top of the central green. Park on the west side of this lot near the bocce ball courts. There is a “Fitness Trail” sign about half way along the park road between the bocce ball courts and the nearby Buttermaker’s Cottage (N39.20286 W121.19117). An arrow on the sign points across the grass in the direction of the trail. Walk across the grass as indicated by the arrow, with the bocce courts on your right. After about 100 yards you will see a disc golf tee ahead with a cement pad and a narrow wooden bench. A short way downhill past this tee you will find the trail in a glade with oak trees. Go left on the trail.
Trail Facts: Western Gateway Park has a wide variety of outdoor recreation offerings packed into 88 acres of beautiful, oak-studded land in Penn Valley. There is something for everyone in this well-appointed, carefully tended regional park. It even has its own website at www.westerngatewaypark.com with a list of amenities, activities, a map, and directions to the park. If you’re looking for a quiet loop walk, run or bike ride then be sure to check out the Fitness Trail in the woods west of the landscaped central area.
Parcourse: Not to be confused with the Fitness Trail described above, there is separate Parcourse (sometimes called “exercise trail”) in Western Gateway Park. It is a series of ten stations running counterclockwise around the periphery of the grassy central green. Each station is well signed (except #7 which was missing as of November 2011). Each sign gives a brief description of the exercise to do at that station. Two of the stations have apparatus (#6 with pull-up bars, and #10 with parallel bars).
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