Well, allow LL to be the first to suggest it: If a recreational trail is ever built in Klingle Valley, it might be appropriate to name it in the memory of Tim Russert.

Russert lived in Woodley Park near the western end of the closed portion of Klingle Road NW. In the mid-’90s, he was perhaps the most famous advocate of closing the road to traffic for once and for all. He was a founding member of the Klingle Valley Park Association and helped organize cleanups of the decrepit road. For the pro-road crowd, he was a convenient figurehead for the perceived moneyed, elite, west-of-the-park interests on the other side.

Russert moved from Woodley Park to Spring Valley several years ago. Of course, only a few weeks before his death did it seem that his wish to see Klingle Road permanently closed might come true.

UPDATE, 6:35 P.M.: LL called the Sierra Club’s Jim Dougherty, a longtime anti-road activist. He says naming a trail after Russert would be a fine idea. He also points out LL wasn’t the only one to have the thought: Shortly after the death was announced, similar suggestions hit the Klingle Valley listserv.

About a hour ago, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty showed up at Fort Reno park, along with a gaggle of District and federal officials, to sound the all clear for arsenic.

A little recap: On May 14, the National Park Service closed the park after U.S. Geological Survey scientists discovered a test sample taken there, prompted by a map outlining areas with “distressed vegetation,” well exceeded the federal safe levels for arsenic.

So the Environmental Protection Agency did some more tests and the USGS retested the original sample they had taken. All of those tests—121 readings taken with an X-ray florescence meter and 33 soil samples—turned up no evidence of unsafe levels of arsenic.

As for what caused the false positive, USGS spokesperson Michael Gauldin said a “number of factors” could be responsible and says his agency is undertaking an “aggressive review” of the matter.

However, Fort Reno’s toxicity problems are not quite over. NPS honcho Adrienne Coleman announced that one of the test readings revealed high amounts of lead in the soil in one small patch of ground in the northwest corner of the park. That approximately 150-square-foot area, she says, has been cordoned off and the soil will likely be dug out and hauled away. There is no indication as to what caused the lead contamination. George Hawkins, director of the District’s environment department, said folks shouldn’t “be overly concerned” about the lead.

But otherwise, all the cyclone fencing is down, the grass was in the process of being freshly cut, and kids from adjacent Wilson Senior High and Deal Middle Schools were milling about.

Before the press conference, a beret black-newsboy-cap-wearing Fenty picked up one Deal student’s cell phone and sent the good news to whoever was on the line: “Fort Reno is safe! They can do backflips, play football, whatever. It’s safe!”

UPDATE, 5:45 P.M.: Mayoral press secretary Dena Iverson calls LL to report that Fenty was not wearing a beret, but rather a “black newsboy cap.” LL apologizes for his lack of fashion sense.

Klingle Road Is Dead: The D.C. Council just voted 10-3 to keep language in the city budget that would close Klingle Road and replace it with a hiker/biker trail, perhaps, just maybe bringing a 17-year saga close to its end. LL’s tally of votes held up with one exception: At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, who voted to open the road in 2003, voted today to close it, citing the federal government’s failure to approve funding for the reconstruction. In his comments on the matter, Catania adopted LL’s point of view: enough of this shit already. “I believe the majority of the citizens of the city wouldn’t be able to find Klingle Road if you put a gun to their head,” he said. “I hope that once and for all we can put this issue to rest.” —Mike DeBonis

After exhaustively chasing down this story, I am pleased to report that the Rock Creek Park Parcourse is being replaced by much nicer equipment. The new fitness stations are manufactured by the Columbia Cascade Company of Portland, Ore., and sold under the name TimberForm. Laura Kruss, sales supervisor at Columbia Cascade, wasn’t sure which TimberForm product we are getting in D.C.—you’ve got your Fitness Clusters, which according to the TimberForm Web site, “may be installed at a single compact site or at four different locations” and your Fitness Routes, which Kruss says are “intended to be strung along a trail.”

I told her I’d seen a sign saying that Group C of exercises could be performed in the area below the Connecticut Avenue NW bridge. “That’s probably the Cluster,” Kruss said. As to the suggestion that outdoor fitness trails have fallen out of fashion, Kruss said she couldn’t give me an exact number of how many trails Columbia Cascade has installed, but she says TimberForm and PipeLine products are “very popular all over the country. Also, we’ve put a few in military installations here and in Canada.”

So outdoor fitness trails aren’t in any danger from home equipment and gyms?

“Nope, these are very popular,” says Kruss.

NPS’ Bill Line left me a message: “Yes, the Parcourse is being replaced,” he said. “The reason why is because the equipment is old and has lived its life and needs to be removed. We are installing new equipment. I don’t know when that work will be completed.”

So there you have it. Something old is being replaced by something new. I called back to find out what and left another message. I’d lay odds that the new equipment will be awesome, because new stuff is usually better than old stuff.

Mysterious, that is, because I still can’t get a reply from the National Park Service’s press office. But anyway, mourn not the Parcourse, maybe, because something’s getting built in the field below the Shoreham, just below Calvert Street NW. A pile of lumber. Some light construction equipment. A neatly dug shallow square. If only NPS cared to let us know what was going on, what a cracking story this would be!

Communism. Pay phones. Roger Clemens‘ reputation. The dustbin of history’s getting mighty full.

It’s gonna have to make room for the Rock Creek Park Parcourse, though. The remnants of the ’70s fitness icon were piled in a flatbed trailer this morning, with nothing but fresh holes in the ground to remind one of exercises like the Leg Lift and the Calf Raise.

At one point, according to this article from Outside, there were nearly 4,500 Parcourses installed in American parks. They bloomed with the first blush of fitness chic in the ’70s, when people like Jim Fixx succeeded at making what was once the province of “health nuts” de rigueur. But home exercise equipment and well-equipped urban gyms knocked outdoor courses from fashion—a shame, because exercising outside is a wonderful way to get and stay in shape.

Still, I ride through Rock Creek Park every morning, and I’ve only seen one guy ever using the Parcourse. It wasn’t Wemple, though he says he liked to do pullups at the Parcourse station just south of the Massachusetts Avenue NW bridge, so I guess he’s gonna have to go elsewhere.

I’ve called and e-mailed the National Park Service’s National Capital Region for comment and haven’t heard back; I’ll update when I do.

UPDATE 5 P.M.: Man, what does it take to get a call back from the freakin’ feds? I have never successfully gotten a call returned from NPS.

Heads up to anyone who relies on the Rock Creek Park Multi-Use Trail to get around—workers, surly workers I might add, were putting up barricades along the trail tonight and in one spot blocking it completely in preparation for the pope’s trip through the park tomorrow. As Ruth pointed out below, the police department has a PDF map of the motorcade route, and the Post’s Get There blog has lots of other tips.

Photo of Madonna del Ghisallo by radon7

Dear everyone taking time to enjoy the outdoors today:

What a beautiful day! No better time to dust off that exercise gear and hit the Rock Creek Trail. Just one teensy request: Could those of you walking in groups please move to the right when you hear the polite “ding” that signals a cyclist’s desire to pass you? That way, those of us who use the trail all year long won’t find themselves cursing good weather.

Thanks,
The Truly Hard-Freaking-Core

More bad news for those of us who commute to the District from Virginia via bicycle: With the end of the Rock Creek Trail construction in sight, National Park Service sent out a press release about imminent construction to the Humpback Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail between the 14th Street Bridge and the Memorial Bridge. Eventually, all will be dandy, and I’m psyched about the planned bike/pedestrian tunnel to the Columbia Island Marina, which is a nice place to have a beer on summer evenings. You’ll just have to forgive me if I’m not reassured by the release’s statement that “Pedestrian and bicycle access will be maintained at all times.” Over the past few months, I’ve endured detours that take me the wrong way up one-way streets, through Georgetown, and most recently through a green-mulchy quagmire rat maze by Thompson Boat Center where I court death twice-daily. Please, NPS, don’t make it too hard on us two-wheelers when construction begins.

Apparently, the construction will affect cars as well.

You can download the press release here.

I belong to one formal organization: the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. I’m not really a joiner, but it would be kind of rotten to not at least fork over membership dues to the PATC since I spend most weekends hiking the trails its members built and maintain. (In addition to taking care of 240 miles of the A.T., the PATC maintains just about all the trails in both Rock Creek Park and Shenandoah National Park, in addition to other popular spots, like Billy Goat).

So when my boyfriend and I started getting the newsletter advertising all the trails that need “overseers,” guilt got the better of us and we signed up to clean the mucky, garbage-ridden River Trail in Great Falls Park. But not because we are of pure heart. The greatest benefit of joining the PATC, we found out, is being able to rent the club’s members-only cabins. And the biggest benefit of signing up to clean the mucky, garbage-ridden River Trail is being able to get to the best ones first. (Trail overseers get, at least once a year, a good head start on dibs.)

Exhibit A: Glass House, a lovingly maintained cabin built in 1950 and donated to the PATC by noted D.C. geologist Jewell J. Glass, a club member from 1930 until her death in 1966. The cabin (there are twin bunks that sleep eight) inside George Washington National Forest is wrapped by a fantastic deck and a giant screened-in porch. The view’s better than TV, trust me, and great hiking starts right outside the door. We did a nice 12-miler to Signal Knob on Saturday and returned to the best reward: ice-cold beer from the cabin’s new fridge and an appreciative toast to the River Trail…and Dr. Glass.

This is how the kids were entertained on a summer evening in 1959. From the Aug. 31 issue of the Washington Post, Times Herald, curiously headlined “Park Teen”:

“Annette Funicello, the Disney movie and TV discovery, is one of the teenagers singing their recording hits on the ‘Show of Stars’ bill opening the Carter Barron Amphitheater’s final week Tuesday night.”

This item, with a photograph (but not the one pictured here), appeared in the paper’s A section. A reason to thank Ben Bradlee for creating Style? It must be noted that the Mouseketeer was billed over Clyde McPhatter and the Clovers. Paul Anka was the headliner.

Also on the page, Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons complains about Darryl Zanuck’s plans to make a movie of the hit pulp novel The Chapman Report, writing, “But to me sex habits of women should not be put on any motion picture screen for public exhibition.” Sorry, Louella, the film, directed by George Cukor and starring saucy starlet Jane Fonda, won the ‘63 Golden Globe for Best Picture. Apparently, the exhibition of women’s sex habits was of some interest to people in the ’60s.

Thanks to inveterate researcher Jeff Krulik for plucking this vital information from the dustbin of history, located somewhere inside the Library of Congress.

A few weeks ago, dog walker Kelly Marshall led his seven dogs to an open field between 38th and 39th Streets NW in Glover Park. Though the field is officially a spur of Rock Creek Park and owned by the National Park Service (NPS), it’s a de facto dog park widely used by the army of walkers that service the Northwest quadrant. The drinking fountain in the park’s southwest corner, installed by the NPS, even features a ground-level water bowl so doggies can lap water along with their masters.

Marshall says that as he approached the park, two park rangers removing an old mattress from the woods stopped him. “Are you a dog walker?” the ranger asked, according to Marshall. “Because it’s illegal to run a business on federal land without a permit.”

The ranger told Marshall that he was not allowed to take the dogs into the park—leash or no leash. When Marshall asked how he could obtain a permit, the ranger told him that the NPS doesn’t issue them for dog walkers. Earlier that day, another walker who had his dogs off leash was threatened with the impoundment of his dogs.

“The things that people get harassed or ticketed for are for having dogs off leash,” says Marshall. “This is the first that I’ve ever heard of people harassed for having a business on federal land.”

NPS spokesman Bill Line says that the ranger was correct in his interpretation of the law. “If someone wants to operate a dog-walking business and make money off it…and you are using the park on a regular basis to walk the dogs, you’re coming pretty close to or crossing the line of constituting a business,” he says.

Since all the canine traffic could harm the park, the NPS has the authority to require a permit. “Many people who do walk dogs don’t pick up their dogs’ poop,” Line adds. “Is it fair to the next visitor to walk in that dog’s poop? Would you want to walk through that poop?”

Line says that permits can in fact be obtained by calling the NPS’ Office of Park Programs. Marshall, however, merely waited until the rangers loaded the mattress into their truck and then sauntered into the park. “I was like, whatever,” he says. “As soon as…they had left, I took the dogs off leash.”

Let the deer sexual revolution begin: National Park Service officials are floating the idea of using birth-control drugs to control the white-tailed deer population in Rock Creek Park.

The population problem has gotten so dire, says park superintendent Adrienne Coleman, that deer eating young trees has led to “bare spots” in the park. “When we have one resource that is damaging another resource, we somehow need to bring it into balance,” she said at a recent “public scoping meeting” held at the Rock Creek Nature Center.

Ken Ferebee, an NPS natural resource management specialist, says that contraception is “a preliminary alternative at this point.” If approved, the deer contraception would work much like human birth control?particularly the once-popular Norplant method. A doe would be trapped and sedated, then contraceptive sticks would be placed under the skin. The deer will be unable to conceive until the implant’s effects wear off.

While a “deer pill” could be a less invasive option, Ferebee says, “There’s no oral contraception that can be administered.”

While contraception is one of the more humane options on the table (other options include the use of fencing, poison, and sharpshooters) one animal-rights group is aginst putting Bambi on the pill. Bill Dallinger of Friends of Animals says people are the problem, not deer. “When free from human intervention, the deer population will stabilize,” Dallinger says. “White-tail deer have an interest in existing on their own terms.”