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FRO STBURG -- From veiled bride to buried diamond, beauty is most often revealed in the uncovering. With Frostburg’s West End Park, form and function of highest order emerge only in the covering.
And as the first of an expected 30 inches of snow accumulate outside the Hut at the Crest of West, the park is in full bloom.
To my knowledge, it is among the best of the Mountain City’s many neighborhood sledding slopes. Among Frostburg’s parks, where everyone is welcome because everybody owns it, the West End is peerless in its sled-friendly contours.
Located behind the Frostburg Moose, where West Mechanic sunsets at Wenks Lane, the West End Park is more hill than flat, but enough of the latter that the downhill run from the big pavilion offers a double-decker drop toward Sand Spring Run, coursing in the distance through the gray woods.
Push off at the top and it’s a quick, steep drop to the first plateau, which rapidly passes away to the second steep bank, and another flat to cross, before a third hill, reached only on the longest runs, conveys toward the tree line.
At the other end of the park, up fr om the pavilion, the hillside falls away in a steady drop, so that the park offers multiple variations on the slip-side go of snow and sled.
The city of Frostburg is looking to reduce expenses and raise revenue, and one suggestion put before the City Council recently was to sell surplus property. One candidate mentioned was the West End Park.
Granted, it’s not much to look at most of the year. Aside from the pavilion, which hosts the annual summer Moose fest a few assorted bashes, there’s just not much going on at the place . No playgrounds or ball fields, no walking trails or basketball courts.
It’s just open space, a public place where you can walk your dog or let him run, sit on the hillside grass and soak the summer sun.
In winter, though, in mountain snow, the West End truly shines.
As bad as these times are, one would hope that grassroots government would not forsake those public spaces gifted by those who came before us. Perhaps future generations will do more to take advantage of the park’s unique offerings.
Someday when the snow falls on a Friday afternoon, the Rec Director will post a notice on the city Web site, and AppIndie to boot. A barrel fire, hot chocolate and jiffy john make for Friday and Saturday night at the West End SledFest.
No date is ever set. SledFest happens when the time is right.
Floodlamps on the pavilion would bathe the slopes in light, and a wealthy benefactor would donate a rope-pull to overcome sledding’s fatal flaw, in the heart-pounding, puff-huffing climb back to the top.
Or maybe not.
But it’s a beautiful park, and a great place to sled. Maybe even the best of the Mountain City.
And that’s saying a lot…
Photo: Beall Elementary's own Will Kerns tries out the slopes at Frostburg's West End Park late Friday afternoon, when 30 inches was only a foot or so. In one shot, Sand Spring run flows at the base of the hill, not far within the tree line, coursing down from Glendening Park, through Ladyslipper Wood, to the pool, and through FSU to Georges Creek. In the other photo, the Moose pavilion perches at the crest of the hill that sends sleds flying...
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