MORGANTOWN – For the second year running, a Monongalia County park has been recognized during the West Virginia Recreation and Park Association annual conference.
Parks Director J.R. Petsko said Chestnut Ridge Park’s tubing hill and concert amphitheater was selected for the Austin C. Palmer Outstanding Facility Award.
According to the WVRPA website, the honor recognizes outstanding facilities serving a large segment of a geographic area that are aesthetically pleasing, evidence of sound design and programmed to maximize potential.
The maximizing potential part, Petsko explained, is about park amenities serving patrons year round.
In this case, the same hill providing winter time tubing thrills serves as lawn seating for music lovers when Chestnut Ridge deploys its new mobile stage for the county’s summer concerts.
Petsko said this summer had the highest overall concert attendance he’s seen since joining the county park system.
“At least since I’ve been around, yes. I can’t speak to 25 years ago, but in the last 10 years, this was definitely the biggest turnout. Partially, I think that’s due to the nicer stage we have now. It’s just more conducive to making you feel like you’re actually going to an event,” he said. “Our staff has done a great job of lining up food trucks and alternating the food trucks that come every weekend. We get people who come just for the food. And I think we’ve done a really good job of selecting the performers we have there.”
This time of year, however, the stage is stored away and Chestnut Ridge Park staff are focused on turning the hill into what Petsko and members of the Monongalia County Commission call a “resort-quality experience.”
It’s been no small undertaking.
The Chestnut Ridge sledding hill has likely been a known entity as long as the park’s been in existence, but the Monongalia County Commission used Parks & Trails Levy dollars in 2019 (about $170,000) to purchase a snow machine and tubing tow lift in an effort to extend and enhance the experience.
It ended up being more complicated than that. It turned out the geometry was all wrong.
Subsequently, the commission spent another $225,000 to reslope the hill to support the tow system.
The freshly contoured Chestnut Ridge sledding hill officially opened to the ticket-buying public in January 2024.
It remains no small undertaking.
“We have six employees working just on the hill whenever it’s open. That doesn’t include someone in the office to take the money. That’s just the hill staff to keep it safe,” Petsko said, explaining that without staff at the top ensuring tubers get a coordinated start and staff on the other end ushering people along, there’s a potential to create human bowling pins at the bottom of the hill.
While preparations are underway, temperatures, like snowflakes, are going to need to fall before the snow machine comes on. Making snow requires temperatures of 28 degrees or below, and it certainly helps when Old Man Winter pitches in with some of his own.
“We’re ready. We’ve got all the fencing out and all the materials out and turf out. The only thing we’re waiting for is we won’t start making snow – if we can, it’s all Mother Nature dependent – but we won’t start making snow until we get into December. We’re not like Wisp and those places who’ve already got their guns on.. We’re just not high enough. We don’t stay that cold. So, it’d be a waste of people’s money if we did that now.”
As mentioned, the Austin C. Palmer Outstanding Facility Award is the second statewide honor for Monongalia County Parks in as many years.
During the 2024 conference, Mason-Dixon Historical Park received the James L. McClelland Public Park and Recreation Award in recognition of a nearly decade-long endeavor undertaken by park staff, a small army of volunteers and at least five Eagle Scouts.
Since 2016, access through the historic, 295-acre park has grown from a single trail – essentially a service road for park employees – to a miles-long network that includes themed paths like the Fairy Door Trail and Space Trail as well as routes to scenic and historic locations like Tucker Falls, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon’s Third Crossing of Dunkard Creek, and Mason and Dixon’s final survey point atop Brown’s Hill.
