Glen Helen Nature Preserve in Yellow Springs has repaired areas damaged by a recent powerful storm.
The bridge and main trails reopened at the end of last week. These areas sustained damage on June 7, 2025, when heavy rains and winds walloped the area.
Several boardwalks were dislodged, and the bridge was impacted by a massive tree that fell on it.
But after weeks of work from nature preserve staff and donations from visitors, they’ve been able to restore most of the damaged infrastructure.
Resident beavers were also displaced during the storm. But visitors reported they’ve appeared to have returned to their homes and resumed their dam building.
The outpouring of support is what allowed for them to heal the trail system so quickly, said Nick Boutis, executive director of Glen Helen.
“It really is a happy story of community coming together after a crisis and making it so that the impact of that crisis is really, really minimal,” Boutis said.
But some of the repairs are only a Band-Aid, Boutis said, such as one of their main bridges over Yellow Springs Creek.
“It's an old bridge (that’s) at the end of its useful life expectancy. So it's a structure that we would need to see replaced in the course of the coming year or so,“ Boutis said.
But it is still usable, he said.
Spur trails at the Yellow Springs Creek Valley have yet to be restored. Boutis said he hopes they’ll be re-anchored and stable sooner than later.
