Abbotsford is blessed with dozens of parks, some among the very best in the Lower Mainland.
But which is the best?
Yes, yes, yes. We know you like Mill Lake Park. Everybody loves Mill Lake Park. Mill Lake Park is very nice. But Abbotsford has dozens of other parks as well. Some parks you may have never heard of.
So over the next couple weeks, we’ll be running a Final Four-style bracket that pits Abbotsford’s lesser-loved parks against one another. Proclaim your favourite park and see if you’re in the majority. At the end, we’ll hopefully have crowned the city’s most loved non-Mill Lake Park park. Then we’ll set it against Mill Lake and see if its backers can help it knock off the city’s crown jewel.
At the end of the day, hopefully you will find a new park to explore. Before we get to the bracket, though, we need to figure out who will be our 16th seed. So to start this week, we’re giving six different parks a shot to earn our 17th seed. Go to our Facebook page, (or just see the voting below) and tell us in the comments which is your favourite of the bunch.
The wild card nominees are:
- Matsqui Village Park (NOT *Matsqui Trail Regional Park): This mixed-use park sits in the heart of Matsqui Village and includes a playground, tennis courts, picnic tables and ball field in a serene setting. MAP
- Yale Court Park: Best knkown as the location of the large tennis bubble off of the Sumas bypass, this court has a bunch of outdoor tennis courts, a basketball court, and city’s only year-round lacrosse box. MAP
- Straiton Park/Clayburn Creek Park: We’ve lumped a pair of trails together here. Clayburn Creek trail runs for five kilometres from McKee Road, south of Auguston, to Straighton Road, while Straton Park sits nearby and includes a trail to the Sandy Hill area. MAP (See nos. 58 and 12); TRAIL DETAILS
- McDonald Park: Best known as the city’s “dark sky park” for stargazing. The park is also a fishing hotspot. MAP
- Townline Hill Park: This park in a fast-developing area inlcudes a playground and a ball field. MAP
- Lower Sumas Mountain Park: This park includes a playground and a tennis court, and winding uphill stretch of the Discovery Trail (which touches and enhances many of the parks in our little competition). This is also a starting point for a handful of trails on the lower reaches of Sumas Mountain. MAP
Vote in the comments of the Facebook post below (not in the comments of this story itself).
Once we get this wild card choosing, watch our Facebook page and abbynews.com for the first round of voting at the start of August.