Sunday, August 1, 2010

Battle Creek Dog Park

Battle Creek Off-Leash Dog Park is a slice of heaven in Maplewood, Minnesota. The spacious 35 acre area is recently fenced. There are also miles of lovely multi-use trails outside the dog park for leashed walks. Battle Creek is a mix of open fields of wildflowers, groves of sumac and birch, pines and even some huge cottonwoods. 

The off-leash area contains two social area fields and several ponds nestled in rolling hills. There is plenty of room to play with others or stroll in solitude. Recent improvements include lots of benches, clean poop bag boxes, trash cans and wood chips for the paths. 

Battle Creek Off-Leash Dog Park is located just south of 94 (near 3M). Travel south on McKnight Road and then turn left at Upper Afton Road or Lower Afton Road and park in one of the lots. The dog park area isn't signed. But check out the map below for the parking lots to get your bearings. 

The red line is the fence (roughly).

There are three gates to access the dog park and 
one gate to access a pond area.

The numbers correspond to the photos and descriptions below.

1. North dog park entrance gate
from the Upper Afton parking lot.

2. North dog park entrance gate. 

3. Bridge and seasonal stream just past north gate.

4. North social area field.

5. Once of the many trash cans and 
clean poop bag mail boxes 
located throughout the park 
and maintained by volunteers.

6. Northeast corner of north social area looking west. 
My favorite place to rip! 
click to enlarge to see my fine racing form

7. North social area looking east.

8. Benches and chairs in north social area.

9. Western path from north social area 
going south towards the big pond.

10. Big pond with marshy wetlands (and mud), 
looking south.

11. Big pond, looking west.

12. Small pond in the middle of the dog park.

13. Western path going southwest
towards southwest gate.

14. Southwest gate. 
Neighborhood access but no parking lot.

15. New bench at the south social area.
Bench looks north.

16. Older bench on hill overlooking south social area.
Bench faces south.

17. South social area. Looking north.

18. Southeast gate 
up the hill from Lower Afton Road parking lot.

19. Path going north from southeast gate.


20. Side gate leading to fenced pond area on the east
(not an entrance to the park).

21. Eastern path going north.

22. Eastern path. 
Go left for north social area. 
Go right for north gate.

23. Entering north social area looking west.

24. Center path, going south.

25. Center path, going south. 
Veer right to large pond.

26. Center path, going south

27. Center path, going south.

Tired, muddy and happy Carmella.


4 comments:

  1. C -- I really like what you did with the map.

    I'm working with the County to come up with a map of the dog park which we can use for signs. Since you obviously have some expertise in annotating the map, could you send me a regular email so I can pick your brain on how you do that? I'm Jan Carr and can be reached at carrjan at gmail.com.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is really helpful! My husband and I just moved to Maplewood and got a puppy. She is going to LOVE this parks from the looks of it.
    BC

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  3. If you are on Facebook, join the Battle Creek Dog Park group.

    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44771381194

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gate 20 (to the pond) is actually the top pond of the double/peanut shaped pond a little further south of the location marked... awesome job and great photo descriptions!
    Just thought I would help :-) Josie

    ReplyDelete