(Fairbanks, Ak) The Fairbanks Off Road Lions Club is developing the park on about 200 acres leased from the Fairbanks North Star Borough, east of the Tanana Lakes Recreation Area. Off Road Lions Club president Corey Bellows has been leading the project since being approached by the borough about it more than a decade ago.
“It’s gonna be awesome, but it's not gonna be overnight.”
The project has drawn out because of a complicated leasing arrangement involving the state and the borough as well as right of way issues, but in the meantime, Bellows says his small club has cleaned up the site of junk vehicles and other trash and roughed in about 20 miles of trails.
“There’ll be trails out here that are just cruiser trails. There’ll be trails out there that your buddies gonna sit next to you and say: ‘You really want to go through that again?’”
Bouncing along in his Jeep, Bellow lays out a plan for additional development.
“We’re going to put in a parking area, a vendor area. There will be a mud pit, a mud course, a rock garden. I’m going to try to scrounge up enough material to make a nasty little hill climb for what you can in a river bottom. And I’m gonna put obstacles within the hill and I’m gonna call it ‘The Porcupine’. It’s gonna be a fun park. It’s in town. Every age and skill level, we’ll have something out there for them.”
Bellows says the park, which will also include a lakeside campground, will be open to the public for a fee one weekend a month during the summer.
“And then it will be available throughout the winter upon request, and that’s how we’ll do fundraising for maintenance for the club.”
He says the club managed, insured, and maintained park will be a venue for events, from rallies and competitions to off-road education and training for kids and adults.
“Show the guy that’s learning or not doing it the right way, hey there’s a better way.”
Bellows emphasizes that the park will provide a place for fun, safe and responsible off roading, but he acknowledges some opposition.
“They think that we’re here destroying things and how unfortunate, and we’re loud and rowdy and obnoxious, and I’ve asked them: ‘Have you ever been around these things, or experienced this?....Well no. Then how would you know what that’s like?’ I would like to invite you to come out when we get an opening and I will personally take you out for a ride and show you what it’s about.”
Bellows says the Off-Road Lions are hoping to open the Park for its first public event next spring. ###