North Royalton residents now have another form of recreation right in their back yards. They can add archery to the list of recreational offerings. The Cleveland Metroparks has converted the former York Road Picnic Area to an archery range. The area is located on Valley Parkway, just west of York Road.
The new range, opened on April 1, offers twenty-two shooting lanes that can accommodate all levels of skill, ranging from beginner to expert archer. There are nine lanes, measured in yards; nine lanes measured in meters for competition shooting and four, ten-yard lanes for youth introductory classes.
The project of converting this area from a picnic area to an archery range received funding from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) through their Nature Works Grant. This grant provided a new layout of the grounds, which included a new parking lot and road, fencing, signage and other materials. The range is open April thru October with targets installed onsite and will be available in the off season, depending upon the weather, for archers to bring their own targets. The York Road Archery is open during the park hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Archery Club, Crooked River Archers, offer year round courses and programming at the archery range. They hold outdoor sessions weekly in the summer and indoor sessions in the winter. According to their website, “unlike other sports, success is not dependent upon strength, height or body size. It is a sport for everyone. Archery is for everyone and a great way to develop physical fitness.” Their qualified coaches can teach both adults and children, including the proper etiquette and equipment care and handling. For more information, visit their website at www.crookedriverarchers.net, or call them at 330-416-8124.
The Metroparks are also in the process of completing the Trail Project, which has begun and is expected to be completed next fall. “A new 10-foot-wide paved trail along Valley Parkway is in the process of being constructed in two phases within Brecksville Reservation between Ridge Road in North Royalton and Brecksville Road in Brecksville. Phase I of the Valley Parkway Connector Trail will extend over three miles to provide a paved trail between Broadview Road in Broadview Heights to Brecksville Road. At Broadview Road, it will connect with the existing trail that accesses the City of Broadview Heights administrative and recreation complex to the north,” according to Metroparks Senior Strategic Park Planner, Sara Byrnes Maier. “With completion of the approximately three miles of Phase Il in 2018, there will be a continuous off-street paved all purpose trail from Detroit Avenue in Lakewood in the Rocky River Reservation to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Towpath Trail, which extends to New Philadelphia to the south and will soon extend to downtown Cleveland and the lakefront.” Phase II of the project will connect to the existing all purpose trail at the Stuhr Woods Picnic Area and on to the Mill Stream Run Reservation.

By GLORIA PLEVA KACIK
Contributing Writer