Jordanelle State Park’s Ross Creek day use area is back open after it closed for construction last year. And KPCW’s Rob Winder reports, a few upgrades are still to come.
The Ross Creek day use area is a good spot to enjoy Jordanelle State Park if you don’t have a motorized boat, according to Jordanelle State Park Manager Jason Whittaker.
"It's a nice little facility for just kind of a more relaxed area to hang out," he said. "If you just want to go on picnic, you don't have to worry too much about boat traffic over there."
Whittaker said staff tries to direct people to that area when the Hailstone area of the park gets busy.
"One of the things we have issues with over here at Hailstone is we fill up so fast because all of the people come and launch their boats from over here," he said.
Whittaker said incremental improvements to Ross Creek have been underway since 2018. That’s when the park paved the road to the area’s lower parking lot and installed a ramp for non-motorized watercraft like kayaks and canoes.
"The Ross Creek day use area has been there for a long time," he said. "But before, it was just a simple gravel parking lot that all you can do was access the perimeter trail. And that was about it."
Whittaker said the area was supposed to open on Memorial Day with 11 new sand cabanas, 12 new regular cabanas with picnic tables, two paved parking lots, a new sand beach, three more pit toilets, and a new fee collection booth
"But it's taken a lot longer because of all the snow we had," he said.
Most of that construction is now complete, Whittaker said, except for the collection booth and picnic tables. And the upper parking lot is occupied by the construction equipment still needed on site.
"So rather than wait for another month to open up everything, we've decided to do a soft opening, and at least let everybody come into the day use area and start using it right away," he said. "I mean, we've only got another month left of summer. So let's get people over there as fast as we can."
Whittaker said that "soft opening" happened over the weekend.
"We actually had quite a few people that came out," he said. "Yesterday, I was walking around talking with guests that were coming in first thing in the morning, and so far everyone is just really pleased."
Whittaker invited everyone to come and enjoy the new facility. The collection booth isn’t finished so visitors can either pay cash at a fee tube, use the new credit card machine or use the State Parks app.
Whittaker said the remaining construction is expected to be complete by Labor Day.
