For thousands of Morton Arboretum visitors, the outdoor museum’s Heritage and Woodland Trails offer a chance to hike through nearly 2 miles of oak savannas, woods and uplands, each with its own ecosystem.
But for many other guests at the Lisle arboretum, the popular paths, which are covered with wood chips and cut through some rugged terrain, present daunting challenges.
“The wood chips give the trails a naturalistic feel, but they can be hard to navigate for people who use wheelchairs or are pushing strollers,” said Diane Gutenkauf, manager of interpretation and exhibits at the arboretum. “The trails also can be a problem for people who have trouble walking long distances.”
To make its 1,700 acres accessible to as many people as possible, the arboretum recently launched a $2.4 million project that calls for six new visitor stations with more accessible trails and parking lots to be built over the next decade. Construction began last week on Big Rock Visitor Station, which will have an accessible trail loop at the head of the longer and more rugged Heritage and Woodland Trails in the arboretum’s East Woods area.
Scheduled for completion in September, Big Rock station will be a circular covered pavilion about 30 feet in diameter, with wood benches and a paved floor. The new path will be a gently sloping paved trail stretching two-tenths of a mile that will allow visitors to see trees, shrubs and wildflowers at close range.
As part of an increased emphasis on interpretive signs on the arboretum grounds, signs or other displays along the trail will provide information about native plants and perhaps animals.
“The short trail will go through an oak savanna, a mesic woods and a wetter upland woods, each with its own ecosystem,” Gutenkauf said. “You will be able to see how the amount of sunlight that reaches each area helps determine how much and what kinds of plant life grow there.”
A second accessible visitor station with similar trail and interpretive signs is expected to be built on the arboretum’s prairie in 2002. Each accessible visitors station and trail is budgeted at roughly $400,000, said Meredith Zelewsky, an arboretum spokeswoman.
Although the new trails are good news for nature lovers who use wheelchairs, the shorter, more accessible paths also are expected to be popular with parents with children in strollers, people unable to walk long distances and even visitors who just want a quick arboretum experience, Gutenkauf said.
“We are still looking at what we mean by accessibility and what audiences we need to reach out to,” Gutenkauf said. “Big Rock is a start.”
The arboretum convened a nine-member citizens advisory panel in January for input on a variety of issues, including accessibility concerns. Panel members included a Morton Arboretum volunteer who cannot walk long distances, mothers with small children and a professional landscaper.
The panel has met twice and will meet again after Big Rock opens to critique the new visitors station and trail. Additional panels will be assembled to provide more ideas, Gutenkauf said.
The increased emphasis on accessibility is part of a nationwide trend by museums to attract more diverse audiences, Gutenkauf said.
“The new buzzword in museum education is `make meaning,'” Gutenkauf said. “Museums are looking for ways to help more people find something meaningful in their museum experience. In the case of the arboretum, that involves doing everything we can to help people connect with the plants.”
