County parks facilities in Point Roberts are gearing up for the season

The newly refurbished boardwalk at Lighthouse Marine Park is ready for summer. // Photo by Michael Wyncoop

The campground is open at Lighthouse Marine Park and crews are working to get ready for fair-weather visitors.

Refurbished over the winter, the section of boardwalk being retained is now open, said park ranger Aaron Johnson. “There’s still some more work to do but it is open and available for use,” Johnson said. “Our crew will be coming in and doing some additional work now that the contractor is out.”

In areas where the old boardwalk was removed parks crews will be cleaning up the pavilions that were kept, gravelling the surface and putting in new picnic tables, Johnson said.

The Orca Center has been removed and there is no plan to replace it, said county parks director Michael McFarlane. “We looked at what was in there and Lifeforce Foundation (which developed the center) took some of it,” he said. “The rest was unusable.”

The ship play structure, removed this winter due to poor condition, is being renovated and will be reinstalled near the boardwalk in time for summer.

Weather and tide dependent, the dock is expected to go in the week of Monday, May 14.

Maintenance work is ongoing on the campground, Monument Park and Lily Point Marine Park, Johnson said.

At Monument Park, crews have been working to improve some of the switchbacks, which Johnson said was an ongoing need for the steep trail. Following the closure of the access point, establishing the Cedar Point loop trail there remains on the to-do list. The next step will be to secure needed permitting, McFarlane said.

Johnson said all of the Point’s parks, but especially Lily Point, are seeing growing numbers of users and they are working to better capture that data. “I have a counter now at Lighthouse, a better way for us to be analyzing use of the park.”

County parks also has an online customer service survey. “It gives us a gauge in terms of public perception: what they like, what can we do better,” McFarlane said.

To fill out the survey for any of the county’s 46 parks properties including the four at Point Roberts visit whatcomcounty.us/1787/Parks-Recreation and click on the survey link on the right hand side of the page.