Bernheim Forest — Local services in Mount Washington

Love Bernheim Forest. Have been going there my whole life.

Today in the late morning on Iron Ore Hill Loop, an unleashed 120lb German Shepherd suddenly appeared, barking and running toward me. Although I like dogs, and in fact just returned from dog sitting three out of state (including a 90lb one), this was a bit scary. The owners seemed completely unbothered. "You're supposed to have dogs on leash," I observed aloud. "Yeah but he's friendly," the man replied. The woman laughed, as if what I'd said was completely ridiculous, and sarcastically said "Yeah, okay." Clearly, these two were entitled to ignore the rules and ruin my hike by letting Rocky off his lead. They didn't even mutter "sorry." After that, I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Maybe this makes me a Karen, but I just think all dog owners should have their dogs leashed, which they're supposed to do at Bernheim (and most oblige).

I am not scared of dogs but you just never know what's going to happen. Many people are terrified of dogs. I can easily see, for example, someone being scared of an unleashed dog's sudden emergence, falling, and hitting their head on a rock, or slipping and falling. Dog owners need to follow the rules.

I will probably stick to Lake Nevin Loop from now on, where I have been many times and never seen an unleashed dog.

My suggestion to Bernheim is to explore the idea of creating a dedicated dog park where people could let their dogs off their leashes in a semi-controlled environment. It would drive more traffic there, give the dog owners what they want, and presumably be easy to maintain, as it wouldn't require a trail or markings,...

A very nice and beautiful place with well-labeled trees so you know what you're looking at. More like a suburban park with walking trails than a "forest" with hiking trails. Nice for a day-long walk or afternoon stroll. And it's free (or donation), so that's very nice as well.

There are a lot of paths. Some, like the Giants and Edible Garden, are well-labeled and signed so they're easy to find and follow. But it seems most of the paths are not labeled very well. As a result, we and several other groups we ran into (asking us for directions) were frustrated because it was difficult (even for experienced hikers) to know specifically where we were at any given point, and to figure out which route to take to get to specific trails we saw on the map and wanted to hike. Simply color- coding trails with trail blazes and labeling them on the map with their respective colors would have helped a lot.

A couple of people with strollers expressed frustration with starting trails that looked stroller-friendly, only to find they were not and had to turn back. More signage (like trail name, distance, estimated time and stroller-friendly or not) would have been helpful and made the visit more enjoyable.

Overall a good experience, but some simple changes would have made it a...

The Fire tower, canopy tree walk, visiors center with the cafe and sassafras room, quiet garden, public art, etc are all very lovely. But there are some downsides.

Forget about finding a parking spot when they have an event. I've heard other people complaining about that as well. All that land and nowhere to park during a crowd.

The education center hardly has any animals. A turtle tank, taxidermy, a few squirrels outside and that's pretty much it. I can see more animals at Feeders Supply. There are plenty of creatures to add such as a fish tank, some lizards, iguanas, etc. No pretty flowers on the outside and the fountain is all murky. They should have a nice koi pond or something.

The Garden Pavilion is advertised as colorful on their website but again, there is no pretty flowers on the outside. The building has tons of birds nests and the fountain is murky with tons of dead leaves and algae. The algae is so thick and slimy you can see it hanging off the side of the rock. Paying that much money to rent it should be in top notch condition.

Limited areas to fish. They have "no fishing" signs in certain areas. I can literally go anywhere else (Freeman Lake, Green River, Rough Riveretc) and fish anywhere without...