Smith Creek Trail in Clifton Forge is more than a mere walking path. Cross the rusted bridge over an unofficial community swimming creek and you’ll find the town’s new “sensory trail.”
“This whole area used to be referred to as the jungle,” said Town Manager Chuck Unroe. The land was “overrun” with bushes and trees, the creek invisible through the foliage, he said.
Now, a collection of garden boxes greets walkers with a variety of vegetables and herbs. The winding concrete pathway is lined with native berry bushes and fruit fresh for tasting. Old railway tracks and wooden stumps serve as balancing beams. A plot filled with mulch, tires, rocks and glass sand offers texture.
The sensory trail, which opened in May, is designed to incorporate “all seven senses,” said Courtney Howard, who leads the Clifton Forge Parks and Trails Committee: sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, vestibular — or movement and balance — and proprioception, or body awareness.
Howard said the idea came from a Clifton Forge resident with an autistic son who approached the committee. He was “adamant” that park spaces become accessible for people with disabilities, incorporating sensory elements, Howard said.
“I come down here all the time because I just live right across the road,” Howard said. “And I was like, ‘Well, there’s already berries in there. And there’s a lot of stuff that we could just turn that into a nature sensory trail instead of adding a bunch of out-of-place elements.’”
Sensory trails are rare in Virginia but are gaining traction. In March, agricultural science teacher Carley Pavan-Ballard and her high school students built an accessible sensory trail in Pulaski to promote inclusive education. In April 2019, the Shenandoah Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists opened a “sensory explorers trail” at Sky Meadows State Park.
“I think they’re becoming more popular because of the sensory part,” Howard said. “It’s not a lot of labor and time and money. But it is something that enriches somebody’s day.”
Unroe said Clifton Forge’s trail came from a $10,000 donation from the family and church of the late Rev. Gordon Dean Hammond. Town funds covered the extra $10,000 for labor and equipment, Unroe said.
But the trail is just the first step in Clifton Forge’s upcoming park renovations. The Parks and Trails Committee is fundraising to build an all-abilities playground, with a highly requested “splash pad” feature.
In February 2022, Howard created a survey to gauge interest in a disability-friendly park project. More than 97% of the 300 respondents from Clifton Forge and nearby areas said they saw a need for an accessible playground — and more than 96% said the same for a sensory trail.
Nearly 45% of respondents said they care for a child who needs special accommodations.
“When we first started talking about it, I was like, ‘We should have accessible equipment at every park,’” Howard said. “But the stepping stone would be to have one park where everybody can play together. And then as we expand, we can put more equipment in other places.”
Earlier this month, Parks and Trails hired the Thrasher Group, a team of engineers, architects and design consultants based mainly in West Virginia, to complete a park equity study for the town.
Thrasher has yet to give an end date for its study results, Howard said. But the goal is to receive recommendations about which of the town’s four existing parks is ripe for renovation with accessible features.
Howard said she hopes the playground will be completed in the next five years. In the meantime, she’s relying on the sensory trail to boost morale.
“People seeing, ‘Oh, they got something done and it’s really nice.’ That really helps their attitude about the playground,” she said.
‘A blending of community talents’
Mar Jimenez moved to Clifton Forge with her 11-year-old child last year. But their new home was missing one key feature: a garden.
“We don’t have a backyard anymore,” she said. “We used to have a big garden and we miss it a lot.”
But thanks to Smith Creek Trail’s community garden boxes, Jimenez and her child are back to what they do best.
“I’m growing tomatoes. I’m growing peppers. I’m growing watermelons, radish, corn and potatoes,” Jimenez said. “I like to grow them myself and know what goes into them. It’s been an enjoyable experience for us to be able to grow the food.”
Jimenez rents one of 11 community garden boxes stationed at the beginning of the sensory trail for $35 per year. One of the plant boxes is designed for wheelchair users.
“Everything you see here, other than the millings, is 100% made by volunteers,” Unroe said of the garden. Local Boy Scout troops built the boxes and the public works department filled them with dirt, he said.
Mac Beard runs a local wood mill and workshop out of the Clifton Forge School of Arts called Occam’s Mill. Beard’s work — and his students’ — is all over the sensory trail and community garden, from the plant boxes to the trail’s welcome sign.
“It’s all about the concentric circles within the communities,” Beard said. “For a project like the community garden, it allowed these groups to work together. Having a challenge is easily overcome with a blending of community talents.”
Decorations along the trail, like bumblebee-painted cans and painted rocks surrounding berry bushes, were all donated by the town’s mayor, Unroe said. And the public works department made some features by hand, like the railroad track balance beams.
Next steps for Clifton Forge parks
In January, the Parks and Trails Committee hosted a town hall for community members to voice their opinions on the all-abilities playground.
Howard said some Clifton Forge residents are critical of the all-abilities park.
“People are like, ‘Why do we need that? Like, how many people could possibly need accessible equipment?’” she said. “But you’re going to use it whether or not you think you need it. Just because somebody else does need it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have it.”
But the committee has not received much feedback from people with disabilities who use the sensory trail, Howard said. She hopes to create more surveys and hold more community meetings to incorporate voices of disabled residents as the projects develop.
“Ultimately, the desire is to extend this trail all the way along Smith Creek to our town-owned reservoir that’s two miles up on the mountain,” Unroe said.
Howard said the all-abilities playground is still in planning stages, pending study results and donations.
“We’ve got continuous small funding sources, but we’re going to need major funding,” she said. “We’re looking at a federal grant, but to have that you have to match. We need our larger funders, so that’s why we’re doing equity study to get some of our local bigger funders behind it.”
Unroe said the park is for everyone — so everyone should support it.
“When we say all-abilities park, we mean all abilities across the spectrum from young adolescent, young adults, up to the grandparents and great-grandparents,” he said.