Ready for summer

Oak Mountain State Park visitors can try out a new beach this summer — or, for longtimeregulars, an old beach that’s been brought back. 

Over the winter and spring, OMSP staff and Shelby County officials worked on a number of projectsto improve the park in time for the busy days of summer. The biggest project was at Beaver Lake, where a new beach and piers for fishing or swimming have been created.

County Development Services Manager Chad Scroggins said Beaver Lake, near the “back” entrance to the park on Alabama119, had formerly included a beach and pier. The beach area was underwater, and the pier had fallen into the lake about a decade ago, said Assistant Park Superintendent David Johnson.

As the main lake, Double Oak Lake, has become busier with swimmers, boats andpaddleboards, Scroggins said they were looking for a way to give people more room to spread out. 

“It quite frankly got very crowded,”Scroggins said.

Beginning in November, Beaver Lake was drained by about eight feet to reveal a former beach area near Flip Side Watersports and parking areas. New sand and updates to the volleyball court were added, as well as grading and an ADA-accessible sidewalk so anyone can get right to the water’s edge. The pavilions in the area also got fresh paint and roofing.

Two piers also were added: one straight pier with a ladder for swimmers “to run and jump off of,” Scroggins said, and a T-shaped pier for fishers or docking boats. The water at the end of the swimming pier is about eight feet deep, and Scroggins said he saw visitors using it the day after it was installed.

“Nobody’s been on a pier in this thing in 10 years,” Scroggins said. “The fishing ought to be really good here.”

Draining the lake also created an extra area for parking and a boat ramp rather than the dirt area boats had been launched from until now. To create a habitat that would encourage more bites for fishers, the county found a creative use for recycled Christmas trees it had collected at Heardmont Parkin January.

“We sank 80 Christmas trees in the lake,” Scroggins said.

The Beaver Lake projects cost about $140,000 in total, and work was finished in April. Since reestablishing the beach, Johnson and Scroggins said people have already eagerly taken advantage of the less populated lake. Bait sales and traffic at Flip Side have been “through the roof,” Scroggins said.

“This whole area the last few weeks has been crazy,” Scroggins said in late April. “We’ve had more people here this spring than all of last summer.”

Within sight of the new beach is a second one, which was created near the overnight campgrounds on Beaver Lake. Ratherthan leaving the camping area to spend time at Double Oak Lake, Scroggins said campers can now use their own, more secludedbeach and fishing pier. Christmas treesalso were sunk in the campground area for fish habitats.

“We went from one beach to three,”Scroggins said.

Johnson said the winter drought did cause Oak Mountain’s lakes to shrink, particularly since they were used as a watering source for the golf course. Since rain returned, however, he said the lakes have quickly returned to normal levels and, except for some struggling pine trees or other plants, the lakes aren’t showing long-term effects from the drought.

And with 2017 off to a warm start,Scroggins said Oak Mountain began having record-crowd days as early as April.

Later this month, a new 2-mile hiking and mountain biking trail also will open. The trail, funded with a Recreational Trails Program grant, will stretch from the park’s upper lake to the existing north trailhead. The new trail will connect existing parking and trails. Scroggins said he would like to see the trail get used for more organized race events, most of which currently start at the south trailhead.

Construction on the trail began in May and should wrap up in late June.

Oak Mountain’s to-do list for this summer also included reconstruction of the BMX track with the help of the local BMX club and a professional designer. The hills and curves are now higher, new lighting has been installed and asphalt has been added to the main turns to make them easier to maintain.

“It is significantly bigger,” Scroggins said. “The kids like them.”

Scroggins said the track will host at least 12 races per year, as well as being open to riders in the park throughout the day. With the addition of new lights, he said the track will now host summer night rides on Tuesdays, Thursdays and any Saturdays with-out races.

“If someone wants to come out and ride till 9 p.m., they can,” Scroggins said.

The park will also welcome a new resident this summer: a female bald eagle. The Alabama Wildlife Center is constructing a mew, or enclosure, that will eventually house its Eurasian eagle-owl and a pair of bald eagles on educational display. AWC Executive Director Doug Adair said he knows of only one other bald eagle on display in the state, located on the Gulf Coast.

“This is really going to be a destination exhibit,” Adair said.

The mew is being built near the center’s parking lot, though a privacy fence will eventually screen its feathered inhabitants from cars. It will include a covered viewing area, educational signs and green space for visitors. Adair said the first of the bald eagles has been found: a 13-pound female from Washington that can fly but cannot be released due to an eye injury. Adair said the AWC was one of several centers that wanted to house her, but were selected because of the quality of the new mew that would beher home.

“We just want the best examples of thespecies we can get,” Adair said.

Since announcing plans for the bald eagles, Adair and the AWC staff have been working under the knowledge that their center is about to attract a much wideraudience. Because of that, several other changes are in the works at the bird rehabilitation center.

New signs and an improved walking trail will make it easier for visitors to get there, and they are upgrading the other bird of prey habitats for the public to view. Near the AWC, the Treetop Nature Trail, which has permanent bird of prey residents, will include a new songbird blind and an “eagle’s nest” area for children to explore, Adair said.

The AWC is working with the CornellUniversity ornithology lab to create an interactive kiosk for the public to learn about avian life throughout the park. The kiosk will include a map of Oak Mountain’s trail system and migration maps, and visitors can add their own sightings and learn about the species they spot.

Adair said the AWC will be the third location in the state to use the Cornell system, with the others at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge and Gulf State Park.

Inside, the center is setting up four new large screen monitors, which will beconnected to 20 cameras. Some of thesewill be inside the eagle and other enclosures, and Adair said they could eventually be part of an online live stream for viewers whocan’t visit in person.

Other cameras will give visitors a peek behind the scenes into the center’s work in healing and releasing birds to the wild.While the general public can’t enter therehabilitation areas, cameras will allowthem to see what’s going on in the medical exam room, the baby bird nursery and the rehabilitation enclosures.

“That’s really critical because much of what happens in rehabilitation happens behind the scenes,” Adair said.

Some of the cameras were set up in May, while others will come online later this year. The new enclosure is planned to be complete by the end of June, in time for IndependenceDay festivities.

Through these new education services, along with their existing programs, Adair said the chance to see a bald eagle up close or watch staff feed a baby songbird can foster a lifelong interest in conservation.

“What we can do is build a connectionto our wildlife resources,” Adair said.“That touches someone; that builds a connection and often makes that person abetter steward.”

Oak Mountain State Park is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the area, particularly for Shelby County, and improvements from birds to beaches not only affect tourists but also the surrounding area as people continue to visit the park.

“It’s just to get more tourism, to havemore people in the park and have a good experience,” Scroggins said.