Water Tank Trail

Walk up Leif Erikson Drive from the Thurman gate and, just past the first white quarter-mile post, a gravel-surfaced access path drops off the downhill side into the trees. Most people stride right past it, and honestly, most people should. This is the Water Tank Trail — a short utility spur that exists to reach a large municipal water tank beside Alexandra Street, not to show you anything. It’s little-used, unremarkable, and named, accurately, for a water tank.

So take it only if you have a reason to. There are two good ones. If you’re the sort of runner who wants every line on the park map ticked off, this is one of the quick, easy ones to bag. And if you’re near the Thurman end with kids who need a short downhill goal, the spur has one small, genuine reward waiting at the bottom.

The Walk

The path drops about a quarter-mile and roughly 150 feet through the trees to the tank — quick going down, a short honest climb coming back up. The tank itself is exactly what it sounds like: fenced, municipal, unglamorous. But beside it sits the one thing worth the detour — what Marcy Houle called “a nice, daisy-strewn meadow.” In late spring and summer it does deliver: a small clearing of daisies, quiet and a little unexpected at the end of an access path, the kind of turnaround that lets a short walk feel like it arrived somewhere. Time your visit for when the meadow is actually in bloom, then climb back up to the road and get on with the better walk you came for.