www.PearHead.orgUpper Sioux Agency State Park
We stopped by this park on Friday, August 10th, to do the Hiking Club trail and have a quick lunch. We ended up actually eating in Redwood Falls before we got to the park because, as usual, we got a late start on Friday.
I was very much not impressed with the park. It seemed like the park is not getting (or perhaps using wisely) it's share of maintenance funds - the signage didn't seem to be in as good of shape as we've seen at other parks, the lawn at the picnic grounds could use a mowing, etc. I also found the signage for the Hiking Club trail to be...odd. It was signed in some places so that one could walk the trail in either direction (as it is a loop that starts/ends at the picnic grounds). Other places, in particular a couple of intersections, had no markers. I also came to an intersection that had a sign there, but no arrow to point you to the correct trail. After multiple consultations with the map (which was a very poor photocopy of the actual map) and a couple of good guesses I was able to make the hike as I believe it was intended.
View photos from the park here.
Comments
Hi...I am an employee of
Hi...I am an employee of Upper Sioux Agency State Park. I can assure you that we are a very efficient staff. Budget reductions state wide have created some Minnesota State Parks with no manager and all with reduced budgets. We have many priorities incuding mowing lawns, cleaning buildings, and resource management. A staff person goes out once a year to review the signing on the hiking trail.
Sometimes it is a delicate balance to keep the park and facilities clean and mowed plus control thistle, buckthorn, and maintain the prairie areas. I invite you to visit with park employees to gain a better understanding of what State Parks are all about.
re: Upper Sioux issues
Thanks for the comment!
I realize that budget restrictions have reduced the available man hours statewide. My observations of the park were based on one visit, but are in relative comparison to perhaps a dozen other parks along the Minnesota River Valley in a two-week stretch. In some ways it's a problem with the individual park (in this case signage was a killer), in other cases it is a system-wide problem (man hours for mowing, manning the building, etc).
I would have visited with a staff person but none was there. The building was open but I couldn't find any staff in the park at all. That alone was a little frustrating as I had to hunt around a little to find the stamp for the Passport Club (I eventually figured out that it wasn't in the building at all but actually near to the entrance).
What one staff person (who knows that trails) finds adequate for signage (especially for the Hiking Club) isn't necessarily adequate for a person who doesn't know the park's trail system. To me a map of where the Hiking Club Trail is should not be necessary - the trail should be signed well enough that the map is not necessary. In the case of Upper Sioux, even after consulting a map (and I'm not an idiot with a map by any means), I was left confused.
I look forward to the Geocaching project coming up - I was at the park the weekend that a cache was hidden there last summer but didn't know it until I got home.
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