Gray Park

I found myself with some time to kill and stumbled across this park. This is a small pocket park located behind LA Fitness. being that it is behind LA Fitness, it shares it huge parking lot, so their are more than ample spots to park.The park is relatively small and is purely a nature park. You will find a pond and a nature trail that runs along Little Buck Creek. There are also some benches, some having a more scenic view than others. A few are along the creek and one overlooks the pond, and another has a nice view of the parking lot. Talk about the short end of the stick. There are no restrooms, playground equipment or shelters here.There was a bunch of trash on the ground in the front of the park. I visited the park after a snow. It was nice because I could see all of the animal trails.The trails are not very long and either loop or end in a dead end. The trails are pretty well defined, at least during my visit. It may be a little different with spring blooms. The park is not very far off of busy Southport Road, but it still finds a way to provide a level of peace and tranquility.This is an interesting park that does not have much to offer outside of nature. I still found this a nice place to walk around and kill some time.

Located right by the now defunct LA Fitness (my old gym) this is really a walking trail and not so much of a park. When they come through and mow the trail it's actually not too bad, when they don't well it's bad. New business has come in and taken over the building, cops are hanging out in the parking lot, place was becoming a vagrant spot. Condoms, blunt papers and empty bottles (Corona, guess who?) litter the area but seems like they're trying to clean this place up. Not trying to freak you out but I pack when I walk this trail, so far no problem, caveat.

Soooo my daughter and I were searching for a "new" park to take the dog for a walk and Gray Park popped up. It's a very interesting odd "park". From Southport Rd you turn into the LA Fitness parking lot and drive to the rear... Gray Park does not have play equipment. It does have a narrow walking path that winds along this little creek. There are places you can get to the water from the path. But, be aware as it tends to be overgrown and you might find some poison ivy. There are also lots of trees that have been felled. The path does lead to a retention pond that has lots of turtles. I'm pretty sure this was made a "park" just to provide some environmental protections and that's fine. Would I add this "park" to my regular walking routes...? Probably not, but it was nice for a change.

Nice little walking trail next to a creek. This walking path is not very long but it is a nice break from all the shopping centers in the area. I wouldn't really consider this a park since there isn't much area to it. You can park in the LA Fitness parking lot and enter in a few different places. The sign is visible from the road. It is hard to turn left out on Southport but it is pretty easy to turn right.

I stopped by this small park located on East Southport Road, just west of the LA Fitness. The park is basically a wooded area between Little Buck Creek and the shops and parking that go from Sherman to Gray Road. The out lot parking for LA Fitness runs along the west leg of this "L"-shaped nature trail, so there is plenty of parking available.The trail within the park is basically a loop that has one side as a narrow footpath through the trees and the other half in the grass just outside the wooded area. Each end of the path has a bench seat with another bench at the "elbow" of the park. The south leg of the park also has a few tree stumps that have been cut to the same height that could be used as seating as well.The west end of the park goes from the elbow north to a short distance from Southport Road. In fact, even though there are many trees in this small park, you are never very far from the parking lot. So, even though it was a beautiful day with a nice breeze rustling through the leaves and the creek was babbling just a few feet away, I never was able to get "lost" in nature. The trail was clear and mostly dry, I can imagine this trek getting rather muddy if the creek were to rise. I could tell that recent rains had brought a bunch of debris into the creek which had managed to get lodged leaving a rather unappealing look to the water.Over on the south leg, which is roughly twice as long as the west leg, the path through the trees is very similar in appearance to the other leg. At the east end, it doubles back still in the wooded area before emerging out onto the grass near a large pond. Geese were surrounding a park bench near the pond, but they hurried out of my way as I walked along the grass. Frankly, this outer half of the loop doesn't really feel like much of a nature trail. It hasn't been allowed to turn to prairie grass, so it feels like any other large lawn area.My best guess is that the length of the trail is about 0.4 miles from end to end, so double that for the length of the total walk (roughly 3/4 mile of flat terrain.) The only trash can is located near the elbow. No restrooms, playgrounds, or refreshments are available for the park.If you are in the area and feel like changing up your walking routine, this is a nice place when it's not too wet. But be aware that you will still be able to hear "neighbors" who live across the creek or traffic if you are on the west leg of the park.Review #302

My family really enjoyed hiking through gray park this last fall. They're anxiously awaiting the spring to go back.

The trails were not cut back, and the trash was everywhere! Just not much of a hike .