Lake Atalanta Park in Rogers is the newest place to paddle a kayak, catch a fish, pedal a bicycle or take a hike.
It's really an old place made new. The city and the contractors who remodeled the historic park did a fabulous job, making it a great spot for all kinds of outdoor fun.
We attended the big grand opening shindig at the park in October. It wasn't until later that we were able to take a close look and explore this spacious park and its new walking and mountain bike trails, new pavilions and lovely Lake Atalanta shimmering in the autumn sun.
The plan was to spend a couple of hours, but we stayed most of the day.
Here it was a weekday, but you'd think it was Saturday with so many people walking or just relaxing in the new park. We chose mountain bikes for our exploring trip. That way we could sample the concrete trails and pedal off into the woods on a dirt path whenever the mood struck.
We parked on the east side of the lake and rode first on the concrete trail around the 30-acre lake. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission just last week stocked the lake with 1,500 rainbow trout.
A raised walkway over the water is like a bridge as long as two football fields. It's plenty wide, with pull-off places to fish or stop for a break. It's a nice, easy ride around the lake, across the dam and through the trees on the lake's west side. You pass a brand new fishing dock and a boat launching ramp. Heck, everything at Lake Atalanta is brand new.
The main entrance is on East Walnut Street, just east of downtown. From here, we pedaled southeast on another concrete path that leads to the trail head on Pleasant Ridge Road. This trail is as nice as the ride around the lake. It runs through the woods and over a couple of wood and stone bridges. It twists gently and level between the lake and Pleasant Ridge Road.
Major joy was pedaling the 10 miles of mountain bike trails. We didn't ride every trail, but sampled most of them. They're marked like snow skiing runs with green being the easiest trails, blue intermediate and black for expert. We found the trails to be smooth dirt, with little rock. Nothing that is going to jar your fillings loose.
The concrete trail took us to Pleasant Ridge Road, but we rode back on a soft-surface trail that goes up and down gently back to the lake. Pure mountain biking joy. Dirt trails are on both sides of the hard-surface path on this stretch.
Back at the main entrance, we rode another concrete path southwest, uphill to the Railyard bike park. Railyard has beginner to advanced runs, with banked turns, humps and jumps, perfect for doing all kinds of stunts if you're, say, 20. Or a good place to thump your noggin if you're carrying around an AARP card.
Riding the Railyard is too much fun. We managed one good tumble when we went too high and too slow around one of the banked turns and went heels over helmet. One noggin thumped.
Railyard's novice and beginner runs are a hoot and good enough for us. We pondered a go at the intermediate run. Hey, the Rogers fire station is just two blocks away, and they have ambulances. Common sense prevailed, and we stayed with the easy stuff.
Back at the lake, we did our last ride on the dirt trail along the east side of the lake. It's an intermediate level route that goes high above the water for some nice views of the park. We found this trail to be about the limit of our biking ability. Parts are perilously close to steep drops and we'd already taken one spill. Nothing wrong with walking your bike, which is a good idea on bits of this trail. The path was the finale of an exhilarating day.
There are more trails to ride, trout to catch and water to paddle the next time we visit Lake Atalanta.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 11/29/2016