CELEBRATION OF NEW FOOTBRIDGES TO BE HELD AT BILLY JOHNSON MOUNTAIN LAKES NATURE PRESERVE
On Sunday, October 18th at 1:30, Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS) and the Municipality of Princeton will celebrate the completion of two new footbridges at the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve. The bridges will make the beautiful natural setting more accessible for walkers.
Members of the public are invited. Refreshments will be served at Mountain Lakes House after a ribbon-cutting at the footbridges.
The bridges afford lovely views of tributaries of the Stony Brook, and are now part of a trail system of over eight-and-one-half miles in the greater Mountain Lakes Recreation Area. They cross two small streams that were obstacles to hikers in the southwest section of the Preserve. FOPOS collaborated with the municipal Engineering Department to obtain needed permits and organize the construction. Princeton contracted for the laying of the bridge foundations and erection of the steel supports, while FOPOS members donated their time and labor to build the wooden superstructure.
The costs of the footbridges were met by a combination of a $50,000 grant to FOPOS from a private foundation; the time of members of the Engineering Department; and the time of FOPOS volunteers. FOPOS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and protecting open space in Princeton, and holds the conservation easements on the Mountain Lakes Preserve and Mountain Lakes House. FOPOS has also “adopted” the adjacent Mountain Lakes North and John Witherspoon Woods tracts through the municipal adopt-a-park program, and maintains the trails there as well as in Mountain Lakes Preserve and Community Park North.