Columbia’s local parks offer outdoor recreation, culture, education opportunities
Even though dwelling in Columbia provides a lot of opportunities to practical experience city lifestyle, the region is also in shut proximity to many parks and outdoor spaces. The outcome is what Dayna Cantelmi, the communication professional for Knowledge Columbia SC calls “a city meets mother nature vibe.”
Right here are some regional places pupils can go to when they’re on the lookout for the skyline to drop absent into organic landscapes, or to just see some inexperienced.
Greenview Park
Practical experience Columbia SC describes the Greenview Park as a multi-activity complex and group heart that provides an abundance of indoor and outdoor features.
Guests can employ the park’s outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, ball fields, going for walks path and picnic shelter. Indoor amenities include a video game home, ceramics home, conditioning space and a gymnasium.
Martin Luther King Jr. Park
Located within just the Five Details business district, Martin Luther King Jr. Park is equally a memorial for the Civil Legal rights leader and a neighborhood centre in which site visitors can gather to get pleasure from grassy areas and amenities.
The Columbia Parks and Recreation web site notes that possibilities for athletics consist of baseball fields, basketball courts and an workout area at the community center. It also mentions that visitors can soak up the background and significance of the park with a take a look at to the Stone of Hope, which is a perseverance to Dr. King situated in the park.
Saluda Shoals Park
In accordance to the Saluda Shoals Park internet site, the “premier, all-natural, environmentally sensitive riverfront park” lies together the Saluda River and presents a mix of instructional and recreational features.
Saluda Shoals delivers kayak, canoe and tube rentals, as properly as 10 miles of trails for going for walks and biking and picnic shelters.
In addition to these opportunities for outside recreation, the park maintains a aim on environmental consciousness and local community outreach. Lead ranger Smith Harden reported the park has a huge range of systems for all ages that emphasis on arts, environmental instruction and receiving people today outside.
Harden claimed the park’s plans and camps have encouraged youth to understand about the importance of the ecosystem and to appreciate the environment.
“Just to see that interaction, to see them recognize … it is really entertaining just to see them investigate, and the light-weight change kinda change on like ‘you know, I’m not worried of the outdoor,'” Harden claimed.
Congaree Nationwide Park
Cantelmi stated that Columbia is fortunate to have Congaree, as it is South Carolina’s only countrywide park. It is also one of the most biodiverse forests in the country and is residence to flourishing purely natural habitats that visitors can take pleasure in on climbing trails, in canoes, at campsites or from fishing places.
The park’s floodplain forest has 1 of the best tree canopies in the world and features the largest number of winner trees in North The us, according to the National Park Basis internet site.
The park supplies 10 various trails. Other park sights at times include things like free of charge guided walks like the Nature Discovery Walk and nighttime Owl Prowl.
Park website visitors could also be fortunate sufficient to witness a by natural means occurring attraction a light display carried out by a uncommon phenomenon of fireflies that synchronize their lights. Cantelmi fondly described her possess working experience with the fireflies at Congaree Nationwide Park.
“It’s just seriously interesting how their blinks are in unison, and it is so dim out there and you variety of you should not expect them to blink as rapidly as they do. It can be just about like a strobe. It is just a truly amazing experience, and then all over again, to see some thing like that for free, It is genuinely neat,” Cantelmi mentioned.
Seven Oaks Park
Situated on the aptly named Leisure Lane, Seven Oaks Park serves its group by providing possibilities for people today of all ages to get pleasure from its indoor and outside amenities.
According to 7 Oaks Park director Andrea Harris, these amenities incorporate youth athletic systems, a senior center, a going for walks observe, a conditioning center and a frisbee golf training course.
“It really is mainly the demands of the group in a leisure environment,” Harris claimed.
The park also features wooded regions and paved trails where people can walk their canines or stroll with mates. Harris defined that though their outside area is not a deep mother nature placing, it is a silent spot wherever quite a few folks appear to chill out and love the outside. The park also retains seasonal events, these types of as its spring marketplace and property product sales.
Harris stated the park also offers higher education college students distinctive work opportunities. College students intrigued in athletics administration or recreation hospitality are invited to take part in one of the park’s internships or volunteer plans or to go after seasonal employment at the park.
Finlay Park
Park-goers may possibly also be intrigued in Finlay Park, which the Columbia Parks and Recreation web site phone calls “an oasis in the coronary heart of downtown.”
The park offers playgrounds, a lake, waterfalls, a fountain, inexperienced place and what the Working experience Columbia web-site marks as a single of the most photographed views in downtown Columbia.
The park to begin with fell into disuse at the outbreak of the Civil War, but was reopened in 1990 and renamed Finlay Park in 1992 after former Columbia governor Kirkman Finlay.
The park has hosted activities like The Summer season Concert Sequence, Mayfest and Columbia Kids Day, and it supplies the amenities and surroundings for an outing nearby Most important Road.
