Cape Henlopen State Park announces temporary closures on two of its trails.
The Junction and Breakwater trail will be closed starting this week for maintenance and repairs during weekdays, but still usable on Saturdays and Sundays. Gordon Pond Trail will close once work on Junction and Breakwater is complete.
The Junction and Breakwater trail will be inaccessible from north of the Outlets parking area to the connection in the Hawkseye community. Cape Henlopen Park staff says the repairs are necessary following erosion of the trails from high tide waters.
“There’s some wooden railing along the sides of the trail that are going to be redone, there’s going to be some regrading work done, and resurfacing of the trail itself from the culvert at Hawkseye and working southward.” said Cape Henlopen Superintendent Sean Cain.
Gordons Pond is also scheduled to close, needing some excavation and repair work, but only after the work on Junction and Breakwater is done. That project will take around two weeks.
“With this starting today, we’re going to see how quick the contractor can get Junction Breakwater taken care of and then we should be moving right over to Gordons Pond." said Cain. "I know with the weather breaking, of course its going to happen right as we start these projects. So, we’ll see how it impacts trail usage, but I’ll think it’ll be, overall, a really big improvement for a lot of the people that use our trails.”
Junction and Breakwater is expected to be closed for the next three weeks- Gordons Pond will close afterwards.
Cain says Gordons Pond needs excavation work and repairs on small sections which were also damaged from high tide erosion. That work is expected to take two weeks.
He says that the work is especially important to get done ahead of upcoming events, which happen every year, in order to ensure that the trails are the safest possible for their guests.
"Each spring and winter we hold two very large marathons that run on our trails. We have the [Coastal Delaware Running Festival] Marathon coming up in April and then when have the Rehoboth Seashore Marathon in December. Those are the big [races] that run, primarily on the Junction Breakwater" he said. "We also run a number of 5ks and half marathons, as well as a number of different biking groups that use the Gordons Pond trail"
The repairs will ultimately cost the park $250,000.
