Coconino County Parks & Recreation May 2023 Update

CONNECTING PEOPLE, CULTURES, & COMMUNITIES

Join wildlife experts in this season’s first bird walk! We will meet at Rogers Lake County Natural Area (7 miles SW of Flagstaff on Woody Mountain Road / Forest Road 231, at the first Rogers Lake entrance sign as you arrive at the County Natural Area). Bring your binoculars, sturdy shoes, a sunhat, a notebook and pencil, and perhaps your camera! This event is free, but registration will be required.

Notes: We will hike up to 3 miles. Bring whatever you want for hiking, and dress appropriately for the weather. Bring binoculars and bird guide if you have them – we will have some binoculars for those that don’t.

Register here!

Keep your eyes open for the newest Parks and Rec adventure!

Coconino County Parks and Recreation & Health and Human Services have teamed up to create a new program for 2023 called Rec on Wheels. Rec on Wheels will let us bring recreation opportunities to the entire county. We will be bringing sporting goods, yard games, board games, a portable mini golf set, and an outdoor movie projector, transported in the Rec on Wheels trailer!

We are pleased to announce that the Elizabeth “Liz” C. Archuleta County Park won the Crescordia Award for Environmental Education and Communication and the Award of Distinction for Art in Public Places at the Arizona Forward Gala!  We are so excited to receive this recognition for the value this park brings to environmental learning and public art. The Elizabeth “Liz” C. Archuleta County Park is a special place in the community. The habitat gardens, pond, watchable wildlife platform, murals, sundial, sculptures by Geoffrey Gross, and examples of gardening and stone masonry make the park a beautiful place to enjoy. Visitors may learn from programs by the Willow Bend Environmental Education Center, the outdoor classroom, the interpretive gardens with QR code signs, the examples of sustainable gardening, the composting and water sustainability systems, and the storybook path from the Flagstaff Literacy Center. Many hands keep this park a special and beautiful place that is treasured by the Flagstaff community and beyond.

May brings warmer weather, flowers, and a great time to bring a book to a park or natural area and read outside!

Readers can get into the spirit of adventure with The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyonby Kevin Fedarko. Coconino County is unique in that it includes Grand Canyon National Park and part of the Colorado River. After the snows, we are experiencing higher than usual river levels. This book invites you to look back to another high-water time, the flood of 1983 and one of the most thrilling river trips of all time!

Young adult readers may enjoy Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the YA companion to her best-selling Braiding Sweetgrass. The book invites readers to look at the natural world through the lens of Kimmerer’s background as an Indigenous woman and a botanist. As spring blooms, readers may use this book to appreciate the plants around them!

Children can embrace exploration with Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld, a beautifully illustrated book about the changing of the seasons and noticing the natural world. It’s a perfect book to take on a walk in a park or natural area!

Find these and other awesome books at your local branch of the Coconino County Library!

Get your Fair Books and start working on your 2023 Coconino County Fair exhibit! Fair Books will be available at Fort Tuthill County Park and throughout the community.

Need assistance in transporting your exhibit? Drop off your exhibits at one of our outreach locations. If we have ten or more exhibits, we will pick them up for FREE!

Our locations are the Williams Public Library, the Page Public Library, the Fredonia Public Library, and the Grand Canyon Community Recreation Center. Nonperishable and non-livestock exhibits only.

Visit www.CoconinoCountyFair.com for details and a digital copy of the Fair Book!

Beale Wagon Road Historic Trail Guided Trip: A two-day fundraising trip for Willow Bend Environmental Education Center, volunteer board members Eric Souders and Neil Weintraub (former South Kaibab Zone archaeologist) will lead 12 participants and two camels to retrace the 1857-1859 footsteps of Lieutenant Edward Beale, his crews and camels who built the first federally constructed wagon road in the United States in 1857. Register here!

Now you can! Join Coconino County Parks and Recreation for a healthy, fun 2023!

Thanks to Friends of Coconino County Parks, we are able to offer a $25 gift card to Babbitt’s Backcountry Outfitters to a lucky winner who finishes their bingo card this year. Have fun, stay safe, leave no trace, and get outside in 2023. Check our website for information about parks, natural areas, events, programs, and the Fair, and keep a lookout for new updates as the year goes on.

Tag us in your adventures over the year so we can share in the fun! We are on Facebook at www.facebook.com/coconinoparksandrec and Instagram @coconinocountyparksandrec. Follow us and share your adventures as we make 2023 a year to remember!

Download a PDF of the Bingo Card here!

• Coconino County Parks & Recreation
• Upcoming Programs
• Parks & Natural Areas
• Special Events

(928) 679-8000

parksrec@coconino.az.gov

Coconino.AZ.Gov/Parks

Copyright Coconino County Parks & Recreation 2023. All rights reserved.