Helena starts work on three Open Lands trail projects

Helena trail users will see the biggest change first at Oakes Street Park, where the city began rerouting the Oakes Street Park Trail to keep the Open Lands network usable while work moves ahead. The existing trail will stay open until the new alignment is finished, but people using the Virginia Dale Street Walkway and the South Oakes Connector Trail may notice short-term impacts as crews work through the project.

The city said the Oakes Street relocation should take about a week. Once the replacement section is ready, the older route will be decommissioned. City project documents show the social trail has been used continuously for more than 40 years, and the parcel was surveyed in summer 2025 to mark boundaries before thinning work began. That makes the reroute more than a simple path change, since it affects a long-used access point on the south side of Helena and the way residents move between nearby trail links during the height of recreation season.

A second project will build a new connector between the Northwest Passage Trail and the Ambrose Trail in Mount Helena Natural Park. City officials do not expect disruption to either existing trail while that segment is built, and they say the work should also take about a week. The connector was identified in January 2025 city materials as a proposed native-surfaced route on the north-facing portion of Mount Helena City Park, and it was listed again at a December 2025 Open Lands listening session among the recommended priorities.

The third project is a forestry operation on the north face of Mount Ascension, where contract crews will fell trees, prune and slash-pile along portions of the Aftershock, 2006, Entertainment and Mount Ascension Loop trails. Warning signs will go up along affected segments, and the city said trail closures are not expected right now. A separate city update on the ongoing Backdrop Fuels Reduction Project says crews are working in Unit #5 of Mount Ascension Natural Park, with no impact anticipated for users of the nearby 2006 and Entertainment trails.

That fuels work is supported by a grant from the Montana Forest Action Plan Program of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, with funding from the State of Montana Fire Suppression Fund. The Backdrop project is expected to last two to three weeks. Together, the three projects show Helena trying to keep trail connections intact while using forest management to reduce fuel loads and preserve access across more than 1,950 acres of Open Lands, part of a parks system that covers more than 2,140 acres overall. Residents seeking more information can call the Parks and Recreation Department at 406-447-8463.