
348 views • posted 11/22/2021 • updated 11/22/2021
The Prison Hill Recreation Area – 5th Street Trailhead and Trails Project was conceived to re-create an area of about 60 acres on the north end of Prison Hill in order to make it an attractive, sustainable, accessible, family-friendly, and inclusive recreation area.
The Prison Hill Recreation Area consists of about 2,500 acres and is part of more than 5,000 contiguous acres of land in the Carson River corridor that are managed by Carson City as Parks and Open Space. The east and north sides of Prison Hill are adjacent to some of Carson City’s largest residential populations.
The Prison Hill Recreation Area was conveyed to Carson City from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2015 as part of a Federal Lands Bill. Prior to the conveyance the BLM closed the north end of Prison Hill to motorized vehicles, but years of unregulated travel left numerous user-created roads and trails, many of them highly erosive and visually unattractive. It should be noted that the south end of Prison Hill remains open to motorized recreation, and that area is being developed for OHV opportunities, in part with the help of another RTP grant.
The Prison Hill Recreation Area – 5th Street Trailhead and Trails Project was conceived to re-create an area of about 60 acres on the north end of Prison Hill in order to make it an attractive, sustainable, accessible, family-friendly, and inclusive recreation area. We believe we achieved that goal and we are very proud of the result. Many residents have told us that they used to avoid this area because of challenging accessibility and unsavory activities. It is now a very popular trailhead that serves as a centralized location for access to numerous trails – paved, double-track, and single-track -- that make connections throughout our community. Match for the project came from Carson City’s Quality of Life Initiative.
Listed below are the achievements of our project:
2020: Gwinnett Countywide Trails Master Plan
2019: Ramanessin Brook Greenway Trails
2018: Drake Harbor Recreation Area - Missouri
2017: Black River Falls Motorized Access Trail - Wisconsin