Portion of Madrone Trail at Canyon Park Still Closed Pending WORD Upgrades
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Water Oriented Recreaton District of Comal County (WORD), which operates Canyon Park, said a portion of Madrone Trail will remain closed while it works to developed wayfinding-and-education signage.
WORD leased the park from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) earlier this year and is working on upgrades.
As part of that effort, it closed off the portion of the Madrone Trail that enters into Canyon Park, past the gatehouse, at the end of the causeway road.
“We are very happy to be working with the Comal Trails Alliance to identify verbiage for wayfinding-and-education signage,” said Mike Dussere, general manager of WORD. “Once this is complete, we will place that signage and reopen the full trail. This will be a trial period, and we are hopeful that the signage will eliminate past issues and enable us to keep the full trail open for the public.”
WORD hopes to have this section of the trail open by Memorial Day weekend. Dussere said WORD also is working on other major trail improvements and will release more details about these projects later this summer.
Comal Trails Alliance said it’s excited to work with WORD on Madrone Trail’s signage. The trail is eight-miles-long and comprises 80-percent of all mountain-biking trails in Comal County.
“Our hope is for the trail to be a thru-access into the fee area and the trail will remain fully open,” the group said on its website. “They have some big plans for Canyon Park and we are excited to partner with them to make it amazing.”
Comal Trails asks people to stay on the trail and away from the lake. There is currently no lake access from Madrone Trail.
Austin Buck, president of Comal Trails Alliance, said the trail is hugely popular with area mountain bikers, of which there are many. STORM, the South Texas Off Road Mountain-Bikers Facebook page, has 3,421 followers.
Many, like Buck, have biked the trail for 20 years and never knew it was even part of a park.
Infrastructure like concete picnic tables and old camping areas date back to the 1960s, he said. His nickname for Madrone Trail was once “The Land of Concrete Picnic Tables That No One Ever Uses.”
At 9 a.m. Saturday, Comal Trails Alliance will co-host a mountain-biking clinic at Dry Nature Comal Trail on Loop 337.
Buck said the clinic is great for beginners but also apprpriate for riders of all experiences. The event is open to anyone ages 17 and older. Participants must bring their own working mountain bike and helmet.
For more information, click here.
About Madrone Trail
The park is eight-miles-long. It is used for hiking, geocaching, walking, jogging, wildlife observation and mountain biking. Pets must be leashed. For more information, click here and here.
