If you walk around Camel’s Back Park, you’ll see over a dozen bales of straw, sitting up on trees on the north end of the park. It’s become a yearly tradition that marks the end of fall and the start of winter for the city of trees. It also promotes safety for sledders.
- The straw is meant as a protective barrier for when it finally starts to snow and people use the hill at Camel’s Back Park to sled.
- Before you go sledding, make sure you have propper protective equipment. Also, always look out before you go down the hill.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
If you’ve been around the North End for a while, you might notice some changes every year to the trees at Camel’s Back Park.
“It’s kind of a transition between fall to winter,” Said Doug Holloway, the director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Boise.
Some people, like myself, thought it was hay but it’s technically straw. Over twenty bales of these are lined up against trees on the North Side of the park.
Although there hasn’t been a lot of snow in the Valley yet this season, Camel’s Back is the go to for people who love one of the most fun winter activity, sledding.
“They come to camel’s back park. We have a beautiful hill here that you can get some good speed up coming down the hill,” Holloway told Idaho News 6.
I talked to some people at Camel’s Back Park, they didn’t want to get on camera but they told me just how busy the hill gets when there’s enough snow, and they said they’re glad the city takes the steps to protect people. For a lot of North Enders, the change is a tradition.
“I don’t know it’s we’re protecting the people from the trees or the trees from the people, I’m not sure which comes first,” Holloway said.
When I first got to Camel’s Back Park, I was under the impression that people were only sledding down that first hill, but Doug Halloway told me a lot of people go all the way to the top. So that’s where I got to go.
Hiking was not something I had planned but I climbed my way to the top as you see in this time lapsed video.
Had to stop a could of times to see the view of the city a couple of times, but here’s what the straw looks like from on top of the hill.
You can see how important protection is after you get to the bottom.
“We know folks are going to come out here,, they’re going to enjoy the sledding piece to this, and we want them to enjoy the park and the sledding piece to it,” Holloway said.