Introduction

Trail 10 is a short and simple oval trail next to the pool area and is bisected by a service road. The upper part is relatively level and the lower part has a short steep down and up crossing a small creek.

The trail first appears in a 1980s park property map described as a fitness trail with 20 stations. In 1993, it is described as a nature trail. The 2008 property map said it “features old field ecology” but by some 15 or so years later, the area in and around the trail had become severely overgrown. It was targeted for invasive species removal in the 2020s. The removal and clearing revealed part of the area’s past with the exposure of dozens of concrete fence posts from the era when the land belonged to a farm run by the Madison State Hospital.

The Park property map classes Trail 10 as an easy ~ 0.75 mile trail. The complete route described below is about 0.5 miles.

The major features of the trail are the old concrete fence posts that lined the boundary between the Park and the Madison State Hospital grounds.

Most of the posts to be observed are along the northern and western borders.