The Park Behind the Shaver Lake Post Office Would Anchor the Whole Trail Plan

On Saturday morning, October 24, the Shaver Lake Recreational Trail committee will ask residents and visitors to help design a park that doesn't exist yet. The free Community Design Workshop runs 9 to 11 a.m. at 41781 Tollhouse Road, and everyone who comes can take home a pumpkin.

The park in question is a proposed nature park of about 50 acres behind the Shaver Lake Post Office. It's easy to read the workshop as a vote on playground equipment. In the committee's own planning documents, though, this park is the main trailhead for the whole trail network. The concept plan says plainly that "this park is the key to the town's connectivity." Whatever gets sketched on October 24 is also a sketch of the spot where most of the proposed trail routes would meet.

Three Routes Lead to One Address

The Shaver Lake Recreational Trail concept plan was published in February 2025 and paid for through a National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance grant awarded in June 2024. It describes an 8-foot-wide paved Class I trail network kept separate from Highway 168. The network would link neighborhoods, businesses, the lake, campgrounds and trailheads. The plan splits the network into numbered segments, and the park is Segment 3. Three of the other segments start or end there.

Each of these segments reaches somewhere locals already go. Segment 2 runs past the post office, the Dinkey Creek Road rest area and several lake access points before it reaches Ken's Market. The rest area already has a parking lot with vault toilets, and it's a starting point for the Perimeter Trail and beach access via Scout's Trail. Segment 4 would give the Bretz Mill Road neighborhoods a path up the hill to the park. It includes two planned crosswalks over Shaver Forest Road, one to the post office and one to the park.

Segment 8 is the one tied most closely to the post office. The plan describes it as following an existing dirt path known as the post office trail. It would cross Musick Drive and Melody Drive and add a third crosswalk over Highway 168 at Dinkey Creek Road, leading to the community center, library, ballpark, picnic area and public restroom. The plan explains why this route matters: "Without residential mail delivery, residents frequent Shaver Lake Post Office." The park would sit at the end of a trip many people in town already make every week.

The Problem the Hub Is Meant to Solve

The case for building a trail hub here starts with Highway 168, which is the only through road in town. In a June 2026 podcast interview on YouTube, a committee guest said the idea came from locals worried about safety. People walk and bike on 168 because it's the easiest way to get anywhere in town or out to the lake, "but it is not a place for pedestrians." The same guest cited traffic counts of more than a million cars a year.

Committee member Michelle McGee described what a paved route would replace:

"You could walk to the lake, you could bike to the lake... and could get there safely versus walking on the side of a highway with semi's and you know boat trailers going by."

The concept plan backs this up with specific numbers. It says thousands of campers walk along Highway 168 between Camp Edison and town every year. That's why Segment 1, a 1.1-mile route from Ken's Market to the back of the Museum of the Sierra parking lot at Camp Edison, is labeled the most crucial section for pedestrian and cyclist safety.

The park would also take on a winter problem. The plan says that giving snow play a place inside the park, with gazebos, turnouts along the park access road and room for sledding, would get snow play off the side of the highway. The plan's words are that this "dramatically improves safety" and helps "manage winter visitors." Anyone who has driven through town after the first good storm knows the stretch of road this refers to.

So the park has two jobs in the plan. It's a neighborhood recreation space, and it's the main trailhead with parking, restrooms and trash cans. Those three things came up again and again in the committee's own account of what the town is short on.

What's Real So Far, and What's Still a Sketch

The committee began with a group of community members in 2023, with the Shaver Lake Civic League providing nonprofit status at first. Three years in, here is where each piece stands according to the sources available.

• The park land is not purchased. The concept plan lists the parcels as owned by Shaver Forest Development Inc. and Strahm Family LP. It describes the park as requiring land acquisition and notes "a verbal agreement from property owners to sell."
• Segment 1 has a landowner sign-off on concept. According to the plan, Southern California Edison approved the alignment and trailhead concept for the Ken's Market to museum route in September 2024. The trailhead design includes about 20 parking spaces, EV chargers, a double vault toilet, two picnic tables and an information kiosk.
• Federal forest money has been voted, with a question attached. At its August 4, 2026 meeting, the Sierra National Forest Resource Advisory Committee voted to give "remainder of funds to Shaver Lake trails," a total of $172,300. The minutes also record concerns about whether the project met the requirement to benefit public lands indirectly. Forest Service staff planned to ask for clarification.
• The County piece is in progress. In the June 2026 interview, the committee said it was working with Fresno County to get the trail into the Shaver Lake Community Plan.
• The overall project is officially pending. The SLRT project page, updated September 23, 2026, says the project depends on community support, grants, donations and County approval.

The plan is also upfront about scale. It says the full build requires "tens of millions" in funding, that segments may be built in any order as money and landowner approval come through, and that the overall horizon is 10 to 15 years.

Why the October 24 Ideas Carry Weight

This is where the workshop matters beyond a single morning. The SLRT page says community input on the park will "help guide the park's design and support SLRT's application" for California's Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program grant. The sources don't say the application has been submitted or awarded. The ideas collected in October are meant to become part of the case the committee makes to the state.

Two sets of ideas are already on paper. The 2025 concept plan proposes:

1. A cultural and arts center
2. A handicapped-accessible playground
3. Pickleball, tennis and basketball courts
4. Picnic and BBQ gazebos
5. A food truck court
6. An 18-hole disc golf course built and maintained by the Fresno Chapter of Disc Golf

The current online park survey covers a wider range. It includes accessible paths, restrooms, seating, gardens, sensory play, fitness features, courts and fields, a dog park and community gathering spaces. The plan describes the land as forested with fairly level ground and scattered granite boulders, with easy access from Highway 168. Those conditions limit what will fit.

A few details from the plan are useful to keep in mind before the workshop. The park is meant to be the main trailhead, so parking and restrooms are part of its job, not optional extras. It's also the proposed home for winter snow play, so whatever gets drawn there in October would need to work in January too. And Segments 2, 4 and 8 are planned to arrive at its edges, so the trail connections help decide where the gathering spaces go.

If you can't make Saturday morning, the SLRT page has the survey, a supporter sign-up and a contact address, [email protected], for questions.

At Iron Key Real Estate, we follow how projects like the Shaver Lake Recreational Trail move from concept plan to County approval. Questions about how planned trails, trailheads or a future park near the post office relate to a mountain property you own or are considering are part of the local knowledge we're glad to share. Contact Us whenever you'd like to talk it through.