Fire in Topsail Hill State Park

[beachmouse]

The only thing they would really need to spend anything on would be taking out the pit toilet and doing any related environmental clean-up. As for the rest, there used to be a second entrance to the park off US 98, and when they wanted to shut that down, all they did was lock the gate and let nature do the rest.

 

[Matt J]

What's the big deal of closing the 98 entrance? It seems dangerous as hail.

 

[organicmama]

What's the big deal of closing the 98 entrance? It seems dangerous as hail.

I know quite a few locals that use it. Never have myself, as peddling up to the main entrance is easy for us.

 

[SGB]

What's the big deal of closing the 98 entrance? It seems dangerous as hail.

We use it all the time to hike around the lakes and go to the beach.

 

[beachmouse]

The 98 entrance was a perfectly safe dirt road every time we drove it. And once you parked, there were a couple of very nice nature trails if you wanted to hike, and the parking was significantly closer to the beach than it is at the 30-A entrance so you didn't have to deal with the whole tram/hot asphalt walk to the beach.

Plus, it was pretty much semi-private. Huge, huge stretch of beach, and you'd never really see more than 10 cars at that lot. All the times we've gone to the park in 10+ years, we've used the 30-A entrance once and the 98 entrance every other time.

 

[Matt J]

What I meant by dangerous was the cold stop with no light pulling onto an extremely busy road.

 

[beachmouse]

Which is pretty much the same as any other driveway onto the road. It's actually significantly safer than it used to be because, if I'm picturing it correctly, they closed the median cut so you can't go left into or out of the park anymore.