As ISU students return to Ames, a new outdoor recreation facility is ready to greet them.

The Ada Hayden Heritage Park, which opened July 1, is located just north of Ames on Grand Avenue. It will be officially dedicated at 11 a.m. Saturday in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The park features a 3-mile, hard-surface trail; two lakes with shorelines for fishing; picnic areas and a boat ramp for small watercrafts.

Monday afternoon, Nikki Clement, sophomore in pre-journalism and mass communication, was already enjoying time off from her first day of class at the park.

“This is a rollerblader’s heaven,” Clement said.

“It’s a nice break away from campus.”

Other than recreational activities, the park offers some interesting research opportunities, said Ames Parks and Recreation Director Nancy Carroll. She said there have already been students at the park doing research on water quality, fisheries, insects and wildlife.

The park is similar to the popular Gray’s Lake Park in Des Moines, where Carroll said daily visitors number in the hundreds. But Carroll said there is no way to actually count the number of park attendees there are every day.

“As with any public park, you have no way of knowing the attendance numbers,” Carroll said.

Along with many other Ames residents, ISU employee and lifelong Ames resident Kim Hasstedt said that she enjoys getting outside for afternoons at the park. Her last visit was Friday, which was the last weekday of summer break for most university employees.

Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco said he also enjoys visiting the park. On the same day of Hasstedt’s visit, he enjoyed a bike ride on the new trails and visited with constituents.

As students settle in for another year, Tedesco said he hopes students will visit the park and discover all it has to offer them.

“This is a great addition to the community,” he said. “As we have students coming back, we hope they will discover it.”

The Saturday dedication ceremony will begin at Reiman Gardens with a nearly 7-mile bike ride, with ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and Tedesco leading riders into the park.

At noon, representatives from the ISU Canoe & Kayak Club will be on hand to give rides to park visitors. ISU students are encouraged to attend the events.

Ames residents voted on the issue of building a new park on Nov. 6, 2001, during the general election. Funds were then used to purchase 437 acres, including an abandoned rock quarry.

The lakes will serve Ames as a secondary water source during drought conditions. Wetlands and prairie grasses are planned to be used to filter the water.

The cost for the park was estimated at nearly $7,500,000.

The park is named in memory of local environmental and Iowa prairie advocate Ada Hayden.

She was born in 1884 and graduated from Iowa State College in 1908. In 1918, she was the first woman and the fourth person to receive a Ph.D. from Iowa State College.