Westwood Hills Nature Center (picture blog)

Park Garbage Ratings: Kelsey and myself have recently begun the PGR ratings. We rate parks by how much garbage we find during our visit. We plan to visit a number of parks in the midwest. Any garbage we find: we pick up, document and recycle. Then we post a photo blog about the specific parks we visit. Today, we visited the Westwood Nature Center, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota (our hometown).

Enjoy and please see our other PGR ratings here

Park: Westwood Hills Nature Center

Description: Both Kelsey and myself had been to this nature center over ten times in our childhood through the SLP school systems filed trips. The nature center has amazing wooded trails and even some floating dock trails. The paths lead around a very clean and animal filled lake. The staff was working overtime because it was a beautiful day outside, and they were planning a childrens Halloween party for later that night. So the beginning of our visit we checked out all the nature/halloween oriented games they were setting up.

Location: St. Louis Park, Minnesota
Date: Saturday, October 20th 2007
Time at Park: one hour
Treasures found: none


Treasures Left: 1

We did not find any treasures on our hike but we did hide one. One of my bearded bunny prints can be found in the image above. We searched all the trails of the nature center to find a spot that would keep the hidden art from the dangers of nature. Also see the close up below.

A fitting spot indeed.

Garbage Per Hour (GPH): 2



The nature center was incredibly clean. It was very hard to even find the two pieces of garbage that we did find, one was hidden in a stump and the other under leaves. The Westwood Nature Center should be commended for its incredible cleanliness. We also were very impressed with the clear water in the lake.

Westwood Hills Nature Center GPH: 2 (the best so far)

POND DAKOTA MISSION PARK (GPH: 27! record*)

Park Garbage Ratings: Kelsey and myself have recently begun the PGR ratings. We rate parks by how much garbage we find during our visit. We plan to visit a number of parks in the midwest. Any garbage we find: we pick up, document and recycle. Then we post a photo blog about the specific parks we visit. Enjoy and please see our other PGR ratings here.



Park: Pond Dakota Mission Park
Description: We just happened upon this park by accident. It is also a historical site displaying the Gideon Pond Home. There is also a really amazing walking/hiking/biking trail which leads down a revene. If you take the right paths you will eventaully find the river (see picture below). I strongly suggest not going right before nightfall though, because as soon as it got dark it was very hard to see the path ahead of you. We even got lost at one point, but were lucky enough to eventually escape.




Location: Bloomington, Minnesota
Date: Sunday, October 14th 2007
Time at Park: one hour



Garbage Per Hour: 27 (4)*

* the number is skewed because we found 2 areas of garbage dumping. in fact, we weren't able to carry all the trash back in one trip. The majority of the park & trails were spotless. its true ranking should be 4 gph, although a few individuals ruined it by dumping mass amount of garbage in a few select locations.



If you live in the midwest area, please give us suggestions of public parks & nature centers you would like us to visit. Thanks


Overall Park Garbage Rating: 27(4)*

see all Park Garbage Ratings here.

Park Garbage Rating: Taylor Falls 4.5

My girlfriend, Kelsey and I (pictured above) visit parks in the midwest as often as possible. We have started to rank the park's cleanliness based on how many items of garbage we find and pick up during our visit. We also look and record any hidden treasures we stumble upon. This is the first of hopefully many reviews:

Park Garbage Rating: Taylor Falls, Minnesota 4.5

This rating is derived from the amount of garbage found on our visit per hour. We do not search out garbage, but if we come across any trash during our trip we capture it, record it, and recycle it.

Date: Saturday, October 14th 2007
Park: Taylor Falls (www.taylorsfalls.govoffice.com/)
Location: Taylor Falls, Minnesota

Time at park: 2 hours
Notes: The park offers a great deal of hiking trails and rock climbing for both novice and more advance rock climbers. Taylor Falls also runs an informative ferry rides up and down the river. The park is located right on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The rocks and wildlife are incredibly beautiful. Fortunate for us, the weather was amazing, and therefore the park was extremely crowded, which makes sense, because this very possibly was the last warm day of the year here in Minnesota.

Garbage count: 9 (pictured below)

Treasures Found: Broken & rusted metal decor, and a standard white marble (see picture below)

Location of treasures: A really impressive backyard trail which we happened to stumble onto during our exploration. It was almost a bird sanctuary and was partially surrounded by a short wall of stone. The location was very hidden. (see picture below)

Taylor Falls GPH (garbage per hour) Rating: 4.5

We strongly support cleaning up the parks you visit: Keep America Beautiful dot org