Northwood News ♦ June 2010

5K Fun Run, Hike at Northwood Celebrates Land Restoration in Northwood Chesapeake Bay Trail

Saturday, 5 June 2010, is “National Trails Day,” and sponsors of the Northwood Chesapeake Bay Trail project will celebrate its completion that day with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a 5K Fun Run and Hike.

Trail project sponsors include Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT), Northwood High School (NHS), Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC), Friends of Sligo Creek (FOSC), Neighbors of Northwest Branch (NNWB), and the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA).

The celebration will start at 10:00 a.m. at Kaplan Stadium behind Northwood High School (919 University Blvd. West).  Leaders from each partnering organization will officially open the new green space and the new, nature interpretive Northwood Chesapeake Bay Trail at 10:00 a.m.  The 5k run will follow at 10:20 a.m. and at 11:00 a.m., walkers will hike the new trail that connects the school to Northwest Branch Park.

The Georgetown North Face store and Silver Spring Pacer’s store will provide merchandise and gift certificates as door prizes for hikers and runners.  In addition, the celebration will have health and environmental education resource and activity tables.

American Hiking Society’s “National Trails Day” is the opportune time to celebrate the completion of an eight-month project to restore 15 acres of SHA property adjacent to Northwood High School and the Kemp Mill and Northwood Four Corners’ neighborhoods and give these communities new green space for recreation, physical fitness, wilderness watching, and environmental education.

More than 50 years ago, the state purchased this land to potentially build a road on it.  A road was not built and instead it became an unofficial community landfill.  With the help of a $7,500 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, 272 community members — 227 of them students — have volunteered 675 hours to create and design eight nature interpretive signs, build a half-mile trail from NHS down to the Northwest Branch Trail, remove 50 pounds of invasive plant species, grow 300 native plant seeds, plant 160 native meadow plants and nine trees, and cleanup 11,000 pounds of trash.

After eight months of dedicating hundreds of hours of work by many volunteers, it is time to celebrate the community’s success in creating a new dual ecosystem park, deciduous forest, and meadow.  Please join the community, project’s organizational leaders, and elected representatives in celebrating its success of creating a new green space in Silver Spring.

[Thanks to Student Trail Stewards for details in this article.]   ■