Cleary Lake Regional Park Master Plan
Scott County Parks and Trails and Three Rivers Park District are working to update the Cleary Lake Regional Park Master Plan. Factors given consideration during the master plan update process will include changes in demographics of park users and the surrounding communities, as well as evolution of recreation trends. The goal of the process is to develop a plan that provides a detailed vision to make Cleary as welcoming and relevant as possible for future park users.
The park, located just south of Prior Lake and Savage, includes the following amenities available in the spring, summer and fall: paved and natural surface trails, a nine-hole golf course, boat rentals, swimming beach, picnic areas, volleyball courts, paddling and fishing opportunities, camping, and rental pavilions. In the winter, the park offers trails (some groomed and lighted) for cross-country skiing, winter biking, skijoring, and snowshoeing. The park also offers a very popular dog park that is open year-round.
This project will guide the park’s development, including recreation, conservation, and stewardship plans, for the next 20 years.
The draft concept plan is coming soon! Check back on this site or visit the Cleary Lake Regional Park Facebook page for updates. In the meantime, if you'd like to make comments about the project, please leave your comment in the Guest Book below or click the link below to view an interactive map of the park and post comments directly on the map.
View the Map
Cleary Lake Regional Park Master Plan Comments
Sometimes I like to just hike a small section of the trail, and prefer less crowds. The access points/trails into the park on CR87 are great for this, and I love having them.
But perhaps consider adding a couple of small "parallel" parking spots at these access points. Not many, just a couple at each access point, assuming the County would actually allow it, since it is off of CR87...
(Currently people just park in the dirt, which is fine, but it would be nice to have actual spots)
Maintain the 3 "off the paved trail" trails during summer. This might have changed since I have hiked them a couple years ago, but during the summer months, those 3 extra trails into the woods are awesome, but I recall some were fenced off/not mowed/not maintained. I don't believe they should be paved, and in fact, I would be against paving them, but just running a mower through there once a week would be fine.
I will 2nd (or 3rd) the request for some sort of parallel biking paths along the hiking paths. As someone who bikes around the lake on the path, yelling out "On your left" over and over gets tiresome.
I know there has been talk in the past about expanding the golf course to 18 holes, in some of the unused areas of the park. Please don't do this. There are plenty of golf courses around already, and I would hate to see all the trees pulled down to make way for it.
I'd love to see snowmaking on the nordic trails. Take some pressure off Hyland. I agree with both separated bike path, and interconnecting with other trails.
The repair stand donated by the Great Scott Cycling club was put in a stupid location. That should be up front near the visitor center. People take bikes off the car and want to top off the tires. Not halfway around.
much of the park is in need of a tree planting strategy along the lines of an arboretum. lets get some interesting trees planted to expand the interest of the park beyond paths and the lake.
Having previously lived in the northwest metro, I’ve been able to enjoy an amazing network of trails connecting wonderful Three Rivers Parks like Elm Creek, Mississippi Gateway, Fish Lake, French and many more local trail systems. After moving to Scott County I’ve been very disappointed in how fragmented the park and trail system is. I think the biggest opportunity for Cleary is to improve connections to the community and parks surrounding it. There has been significant residential development north of the park but there is no direct access from the north. A trail along Texas avenue leading to the park between 158th Street to Eagle Creak Ave would be a huge win and improve connectivity to Murphy-Hanrehan. Texas Ave. barely has a shoulder, making for a very dangerous approach to the park.
My husband and I ride bikes often at Cleary Lake. As the population of Credit River Township has grown so has the park use. It is difficult to ride around walkers and dogs on leashes that frequently are across the path from their owners. We would love to see a separate path added for bikers and rollerbladers to provide much needed safety for bikers/rollerbladers from walkers.
It would be my dream to have ALL the Scott county and neighboring parks all joined together via paved trails so you can run from one to the next.
I suggest adding signage to make the paved trail around the lake unidirectional, with foot traffic advised to keep to the right. During busy times, faster traffic (bikers and roller bladers) must frequently slow or stop when there's pedestrian traffic on both sides of the trail and no room to pass. I've also seen near head-on collisions where bikers traveling in opposite directions pass foot traffic and enter each other's lanes without good visibility around blind curves. Making the trail unidirectional could improve safety for all.
Forgive me if this is already implemented, but I’d love to see a “bike only” lane along the trails.
A big playground (like at Lake Minnetonka Regional Park or Cottage Grove's Woodridge Park) would be great!
Love this park! Enjoy walking/biking the trails. My only concern for it is there is quite a lot of fallen trees along the trails, and I am concerned that fires that could possibly start ruining this beautiful park.