Anita Will remembers the first time she saw the forest that would become her obsession. It was about 1980 when she and a friend loaded up a horse trailer and went for a ride in Whipple Creek Regional Park.
She and her friend rode along a narrow, old trail and swam their horses belly-deep through a deep, muddy bog. They continued along underneath a canopy of alder, cedar, maple and fir — a mix of trees that was common before the area was settled and logged.
“It was just a jewel,” she recalled thinking.
For Will and others, the park is a rare place in Clark County to see and feel the area’s heritage. It’s remained undeveloped as it’s switched hands from the city of Vancouver to Clark County, meaning there’s been no shelters or public restrooms at the sprawling 300-acre wooded expanse.
The quiet and overlooked park has been neglected and abused. The barely maintained trails became nearly unusable. The park attracted garbage dumping, and the historic stone grist mill at the south end was vandalized. Will worried that the park would eventually be shuttered.
“I wanted it there for my grandkids, and it was a big deal because it was going away,” Will said.
So Will got to work calling government offices, recruiting volunteers and combing through old newspaper articles that eventually lead to a sizable grant to fund the park’s upkeep.
Fast-forward to now: The 4 miles of trail in the park are groomed and peppered with tracks from dogs, horses, bikes and hikers. There are signs scattered through the park with maps. Plans are in the works to restore the mill and expand the trails.
At the center of it has been Will, who heads the Whipple Creek Park Restoration Committee, a group that’s affiliated with the Clark County Parks Foundation. It has contributed 4,476 volunteer hours since 2011, according to the county figures.
“She’s kind of single-handedly transformed that park,” said Karen Llewellyn, volunteer program coordinator for Clark County Public Works.
Tyler Castle, a volunteer who has worked on the park, said that Will’s persistence has turned the park around.
“There are a lot of people who stood behind her,” he said. “She rallied the troops who also rallied troops; it literally took an army to get this to where it is today.”
‘Horses are my freedom’
Will, 59, grew up “freer than free could be” on a small farm in the Redmond area. She remembers being around horses since she was 3. During her childhood, she would sometimes spend all day riding horses and picking blackberries with her siblings.
“It’s really hard to explain to someone who has never been around them,” she said of her love of horses. “They are part of your family.”
At one point she had eight horses, but now just has two quarter horses that live on her property outside of Battle Ground.
When she about 12, her family moved to Clark County where she put down roots. As an adult, she drove buses and had a side job as a crew leader doing trail work for the Mount St. Helens Institute.
When gas was cheaper and she was more able-bodied, she usually traveled to more far-flung areas to ride her horses. But she kept coming back to Whipple Creek Park to train young horses before taking them into the backcountry.
Will isn’t as mobile as she used to be. She developed a heart condition and broke her leg late last year.
“The horses are my freedom,” she said. “I can go places with my horse I couldn’t get around with myself.”
Ground work
When Will first started working on the park seven years ago, she was working as a bus driver and would take rubber boots and a shovel along with her on her morning run so she could go fill mudholes in the park before her afternoon run.
In the early 2000s, the county put layers of mulch on the park’s trails. That turned the trails into a layer of thick, suck-your-boot-off sludge that created a supple breeding-ground for mosquitoes and made horse riding dangerous. Will also recalls more garbage dumping at the park then, with broken glass strewn about with other paraphernalia that parents wouldn’t want kids picking up. Vandals were also spray-painting and tearing apart the mill. It all distressed Will.
Sandra Day, a member of Ridgefield City Council who worked with Will, said that the county was having financial problems maintaining the park. She said that changed when Will and the citizen group she helped form took over upkeep.
In 2009, Will started contacting the county and laid the groundwork for the Whipple Creek Park Restoration Committee. The volunteer group signed an agreement with the city of Vancouver, which then managed the park, in 2011 to adopt and work on the park. Afterward, Will said, she became “pester queen” calling friends with tractors and other equipment to start repairing the trails.
“I’m not the most patient person in the world,” Will said. “When I want to get something done, I want it done now.”
Trucks and tractors couldn’t access parts of the trail. But Will gathered work parties and leveraged volunteers from groups like the Washington Trail Riders Association and the Boy Scouts to do the backbreaking work of hauling in gravel with mules and wheelbarrows, and shoveling the gravel onto trails that were widened or even moved.
“It’s like night and day,” said Llewellyn of the improvements. Llewellyn said that Will also performed research and single-handedly found a forgotten $75,000 pot of money that was donated in 1997 by the Landerholm, Lansverk and Elmer families designated for Whipple Creek park improvements.
The money is overseen by the Columbia Land Trust. Will said that the restoration committee has held fundraiser horse tack sales and sold water at the rodeo. They’ve also landed grants from the American Quarter Horse Association and the Washington Trail Riders Association.
“You can have all the volunteers in the world,” she said. “But you can’t do it without money; you just can’t.”
Path forward
Despite the progress on the trail, Will said that the work can be slow moving. She said that at times, money would be approved by the trust just when the weather turned wet and cold. She also said that one 10-foot stretch of trail took an entire dump truck of rock because it just kept sinking.
Christine Kukula, treasurer for the restoration committee, said that now that the park is more usable year-round, the challenge is now managing the competing interests between dogs, mountain bikers and easily spooked horses. Will said that a trail was closed down one winter but was disappointed when people kept using it.
“I don’t know if there is any other space in the county where you have this much natural, untamed forest that’s this accessible,” said Castle, government liaison for the committee. “And that’s another concern for us: As the county grows, there will be stress on the park’s infrastructure.”
Castle said that the group has encountered environmental regulations and other red tape in getting work approved. But he said that Will’s focus has moved projects along like getting a dumpster for horse manure set up.
“This is easily the most volunteer-maintained park in the county,” he said. “We have miles of trail and we are now at the point of maintaining them.”
In the future, Castle said there’s talk of connecting the park to others and restoring the mill. Castle said that friends and family have convinced Will to slow down her involvement because of her heart condition.
Will said that all along she’s sought not just to revitalize the park, but to get others to take ownership of it. After all, she said, “It’s our park.”
