This summer: New trail, ADA kayak launch, fishing pier at Pinhook Park in South Bend

What’s up with the orange snow fences that create a sort of adventure-game maze through the grass at South Bend’s Pinhook Park? One clue may be the large construction equipment and contractors that have been rebuilding the boat ramp on the U-shaped lagoon.

A major overhaul of the park began several weeks ago to create more access, here at 2801 Riverside Drive, a popular paddling and fishing hole where you can see turtles, Canada geese, a green heron that visits the outer shores and muskrat.

Work is expected to finish by the end of August, South Bend Venues, Parks and Arts Director Aaron Perri says. Current plans show that it will have:

• A concrete boat ramp that includes a wheelchair-accessible canoe and kayak launch, the first in St. Joseph County. This handy structure will make it easier even for those with bad knees. You’ll use your hands to slide onto a metal bench, then slide into your boat. Berrien County added one of these in 2018 when it remade Paw Paw River County Park in Watervliet, and a handful of them have also been installed in northwest Indiana, including on Trail Creek at Michigan City’s Hansen Park. The old launch is inaccessible while work goes on, but a few people are finding other shorelines to put in kayaks.

• A floating metal fishing pier at the southwest corner of the park.

• A paved, 10-foot-wide asphalt trail that will form a full, oval loop, following the shoreline along the north and west, then coming just north of the drive and parking areas in the park’s southern half, cruising by the Angel of Hope memorial. The new trail will connect with the Riverside Trail, where there’s already a push-button light to cross Riverside Drive. Plans call for bike racks and a bike repair station as soon as you cross into Pinhook. Then, the first of two entrances to the first parking lot will be closed to avoid conflicts with trail users. You can find a deteriorated remnant of an old asphalt trail that went only along the western edge of the shores. The new trail and the park itself are just south of Boland Drive and the half-mile Boland Trail, built in 2018, that snakes up an incline for an overview of the park.

• An “interactive trail feature,” or art, at two points along the new trail.

• New playground equipment by the park building where the old equipment was. As with South Bend’s other parks, a portion of the playground will have universal access.

• Repaved parking lots.

Also, Perri says renovations are almost done on Pinhook’s building, built in 1963, that include new floors, paint, mechanicals, audio/visual equipment and accessible restrooms. It may be ready for the public to once again rent by June, he adds, depending on COVID-19 restrictions at that time. It includes public, wheelchair-accessible restrooms that are accessible from the outside on the lower level, which were updated last year, he says.

The whole project will cost just over $1 million, with $200,000 covered by a state grant and the rest financed through a bond covering upgrades to several parks as part of the My South Bend Parks and Trails program, Perri says.

What you won’t see is a return of the beach on the north shore that the city closed in 1988 after declining usage. In feedback about what the public wanted, Perri says, people had mentioned the beach, but there wasn’t a strong call for it. Besides, he says, the city considered the costs of maintaining the sand and lifeguards and decided to focus on its current uses: boating and fishing.

The parks department is still looking into where and how much of the grass to turn into no-mow zones with native plants to emphasize natural habitat, which it has done with 10% of the space at other parks.

So, what are the orange fences for? They’re there to guide the contractors’ big vehicles so they don’t run over and damage roots of the park’s many mature trees.

Visit this column online to see a photo gallery of how this park was created as workers in the 1930s dug a new channel of the St. Joseph River, and listen to a podcast about the project’s history, recorded in February 2019.

Outward bound

• Global Big Day: This annual bird-counting day comes Saturday while migration is in full swing. It’s simple: Watch for birds, even if it’s a few minutes in your backyard. Then report what you’ve seen. Find details at ebird.org/globalbigday, where you can get a free eBird account and post bird sightings any time of year. Or use the free eBird mobile app to make submissions while hiking. Not an expert? Cornell Lab’s Merlin ID free app will help, using a few simple questions or a photo of the bird.

• East Bank Trail closure: On Tuesday, South Bend closed the East Bank Trail between the Niles Avenue dog park and North Shore Drive so that it can replace cracked pavement and stabilize the steep embankment. That section of trail will be closed through the end of June. Bikers and walkers are now detoured along the sidewalk on Niles Avenue. The trail first had issues during the major flood in February 2018, causing the bank to slide and pavement to break open — issues that city officials said they’d eventually have to address. Though repaved, the asphalt has cracked again. A city spokeswoman says contractors will remove and replace all of the pavement and the underlying material between the dog park and North Shore. They’ll add rocks along the riverbank to stabilize the slope and aid drainage, while also adding a webbed, synthetic material to anchor grasses on the slope.

• Next Indiana Campfires: In recent years, Indiana Humanities has been leading hikes and paddles, reading nature literature from Hoosier authors and later sipping an Indiana beer. This month, it will be a virtual tour May 17 of Mossy Point Nature Preserve and White River Bluffs, two Central Indiana Land Trust properties that are typically closed to the public but that boast sandstone canyons. Via a Zoom meeting, there will be short readings and discussion, and a naturalist will point out features of the sites with a 360-degree video. Cost is $5 per household. Register at virtualcampfire.eventbrite.com. Indiana Humanities also has posted a nearly 16-minute meditative video from the Blatchley Nature Study Club, a private preserve by the White River in Hamilton County, with long shots in spring, plus a couple of readings. There’s a list of questions to sharpen your observations. Watch it at nextincampfires.org. Also there, you can buy a collection of readings from the Campfires series for $20 per book.

• State parks hit COVID-19 limits: Indiana Dunes, Turkey Run and Shades state parks and Cataract Falls State Recreation Area hit their maximums for visitors by 2 p.m. Saturday, a gorgeous warm day. Indiana park officials recommended coming back at off-peak days or times. In Michigan, Grand Haven State Park shut down to vehicle traffic Saturday after too many people crowded by the beach and failed to practice social distancing; visitors can still enter, just not by car.

• Porter Beach closed: Indiana Dunes National Park announced today (May 6) that it has closed Porter Beach after it had become overcrowded and visitors failed to follow social distancing. The park’s law enforcement rangers will patrol the area and criminally charge those who violate the closure, according to the park's  press release. All trails and most beaches remain open in the national park. Porter Beach, restrooms and trash cans could reopen later this month, the release said.

• Paddling rentals: T&L Country Canoes in Shipshewana announced that it’s opening for the season for 1- and 2-hour trips on the Fawn River on Saturday, but with COVID-19 precautions, including: Face masks required in offices and in shuttle buses and extra time needed to disinfect buses, boats and gear after each use. (Reservations required: tlcountrycanoesllc.com, 260-562-2411) Also, Trading Post Canoe and Kayak in Mongo, Ind., plans to open rentals on the Pigeon River on Saturday with similar requirements, which owners discuss on its Facebook page. (Reservations required: tradingpostcanoe.com, 260-367-2493)

• Madeline Bertrand County Park: This park in Niles reopened Saturday for daily hours of 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The trails, disc golf course and restrooms are open, though the visitors center is closed, which means no disc golf sales or rentals. Also, playgrounds and picnic reservations are closed. All of that can change at any time, to be decided by county parks commissioners, Park Manager Jay Dean says.