This is the Poggie Club's private park. Or they treat it like it is. The gate is always locked against public use, has been for years. If you have a couple hundred dollars and plan weeks in advance and you jump through a few hoops, someone will come and unlock it for you for one day. If someone else pays to have it opened and you notice and think you can just drive into the parking lot, well, there'll be a sign placed in the way saying the whole park is reserved. Basically public access is discouraged in every possible way. So it is not a Public Park, though it is listed as such by bremerton dot gov.
But it is the end-point of the Kitsap Trail that brings you there from Lake Kitsap. So you can walk through it. You just can't bring a vehicle. And you can't leave a vehicle there before walking from Lake Kitsap, you have to have the stamina to walk back to the lake.
In all, the place should just be closed down and allowed to return to wild wetlands, since public access is so restrictive. Let it go to wild or make it, as a park, legitimately and easily accessed by the public, which apparently ain't gonna happen.
But if you live close enough to just walk in, you'll find some provided standard park features, nothing novel or locality-specific, kind of a generic park. If you're black or look like a hobo someone will probably kick you out, but if you're white and don't look like you're looking for a place to sleep safely, any authority that might happen to be present will probably be quite friendly.
The GOOD thing about the park is it is an entry point to walking into the wetlands along Gorst Creek, Jarstad Creek, and Heins Creek, local treasures too few people even know about and are not encouraged to use, unless you're a member of the Poggie Club of course, a bunch of privileged and politically empowered white people who like to go fishing.
The Poggie Club claims to keep the place clean as volunteers, but since scarcely anyone gets to use the place but themselves, they're just cleaning up after their own kids. If you or I want to volunteer to help with this imaginary clean-up, we're not permitted. Unless we first join the Poggie Club. It's a closed circle of illogic!
There is legitimate access to watershed areas at Green Mountain, a nicer place besides. Though if I could drive down to Jarstad Park with a bag lunch now and then and sit by the creek, I would do so at least once a month because it is nearby. Not allowed. read more