Mount Pisgah parking lot work limits access through October

Parking lot improvements are squeezing the busiest entrance to Mount Pisgah through October, but Howard Buford Recreation Area’s trails remain open. Lane County says visitors should expect limited parking, periodic closures and construction activity at the Arboretum/Main Summit Trail lot, with easier access from the North Bottomlands or East Trailheads.

The work lands at one of Lane County’s most heavily used outdoor spaces, where the county’s 2022 trail brochure described Howard Buford Recreation Area as 2,214 acres and the largest of its 68 parks. Mount Pisgah rises 1,531 feet above sea level and more than 1,000 feet above the Willamette River’s Coast and Middle Forks, giving the park the kind of quick-payoff views that keep Eugene and Springfield families coming back for repeat hikes, runs and birding trips.

That day-to-day use depends on a system of quiet stewardship. On Mount Pisgah’s west slope, a 210-acre arboretum is leased to and managed by Mount Pisgah Arboretum, a private nonprofit organization. Lane County’s Board of County Commissioners authorized a 50-year lease agreement with the arboretum in 2019, then approved a separate 50-year lease with Friends of Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah in 2021. Friends of Buford Park says the greater Mt. Pisgah area has nearly 30 miles of trails, a network that helps the site function as both a habitat corridor and a local recreation hub.

The county has also paired those long leases with capital work. A board-approved parking lot project will add 175 parking spaces, create a 0.3-acre picnic area, allow future flush restrooms and improve ADA access. That kind of investment matters at Mount Pisgah, where access patterns change with the season and with the size of the crowd, but the underlying demand rarely does.

The park’s staying power also rests on a longer history. Mount Pisgah Arboretum says it has been teaching people about nature since 1973, and its history page says Eugene’s mayor appointed a committee in the 1969-to-1979 period to establish an international arboretum, while Gov. Tom McCall announced Howard Buford Recreation Area as a 2,300-acre ecologically diverse tract along the Coast Fork of the Willamette River. A 1994 master plan said Mount Pisgah had a long history of human habitation and use and called for interpretive and educational exhibits on its cultural and natural history.

That mix of access, stewardship and institutional patience is what keeps Mount Pisgah working as a daily asset for Lane County. Even with construction at the main lot, the park’s trail network, nonprofit caretakers and county leases keep the core experience intact.