Foot by foot, Mountlake Terrace park path built up by volunteers

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Eagle Scout candidate Joshua Haynes started the work in 2010, carving out a trail through overgrown trees Matt Hirvela Bicentennial Park.

That got neighbors excited. The following spring, over 100 volunteers came to the park to continue clearing the path. Volunteer groups spread gravel. They paved and extended the path to loop the entire park. Some contributed by installing park benches, birdhouses and a flag pole. In 2021, a new playground was installed.

The all-volunteer effort to create a walking trail now loops the nearly 5-acre park just south of Mountlake Terrace High School, at 4105 222nd St. SW. Grant funding refurbished the final stretch of the path to complete the loop this month.

(Kate Erickson / The Everett Herald)

While the loop is short, at just three-tenths of a mile, the work put into the park has been anything but easy.

The county awarded volunteers small grants over the years to fund the project. But at times, the funding only gave the volunteers enough to extend the path by 100 feet at a time.

Over time, what began as a heavily wooded area with tall trees has become an open space.

As the city’s park services and property management superintendent, Ken Courtmanch has seen the huge change firsthand. A decade ago, he said, the park was incredibly overgrown and difficult to access from certain sides.

Mountlake Terrace has a “robust volunteer community,” Courtmanch said. For this particular project, he thinks the driving force was Girl Scout Troop 43752. The troop, whose members live near the park and attend Cedar Way Elementary School down the street, worked on the park and its path for over four years.