Photograph By Keith Anderson
A 100-hectare park between Dallas and Barnhartvale is classified as dry benchland, but where Heather Toles stood on Sunday it s wet, muddy and alive with insect life.
A spring historically tapped for farming and residential use is the seed for the Dallas-Barnhartvale Nature Park wetland restoration project, which breaks ground today.
From a tangle of forest debris, underbrush and invasive species, the Barnhartvale Horse and Hiker Preservation Society is building - yes, building - a naturally fed, self-sustaining wetland.
The park - with its trailhead off Eliza Road in the area sometimes referred to as downtown Barnhartvale - is a natural link between the valley floor in Dallas and the upland forest, rising through silt bluffs and hoodoos.