Summer secret: Eden Prairie’s most beautiful valley

A hidden valley and a gurgling brook have emerged from decades of out of sight, out of mind neglect behind thickets of buckthorn and sumac. I discovered them Saturday in Bryant Lake Regional Park.

I needed photos for an in-depth Eden Prairie Local News story in progress about local initiatives to clean up impaired lakes and creeks. Nine Mile Creek is part of the story – its South Branch runs through the regional park.

Despite warnings issued Saturday by public health officials about the thick, smoky haze drifting in from Manitoba wildfires, I drove at 6 p.m. to the fenced area where dogs may run off-leash. It’s just a few steps from the upstream site of the South Branch Streambank Stabilization Project – a clean water and habitat initiative by the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District and Three Rivers Park District, completed last November.

Saturday’s sun was filtered and great for photographers, but not for folks with respiratory challenges and eye allergies. I had known the corridor between the dog park and the Hwy. 62 bridge as a tangle of buckthorn, slopes, weeds, a few tall trees and a serpentine ditch. Sometimes the ditch was dry; other times, a gushing sluice.

But what I discovered Saturday was an unexpected paradise. Gone was the buckthorn. Gone was the ditch; instead, a sunlit glen with a palette of greens and khakis and a ribbon of calm and riffling water for minnows and creek chub.

Last summer, Watershed District project manager Brett Eidem explained to my EPLN colleague Jim Bayer and me that the creek banks were being stabilized with root wads, brush bundles, tree trunks, vegetated rock slopes and native plantings. Rocks were “strategically” placed to reconnect the Nine Mile branch to its floodplain to reduce flooding. The result: greater biodiversity, a healthier stream, and for casual hikers like me, scenery for the soul.

Buckthorn removal began in 2023. Last fall, bur oak, pagoda dogwood, and seeds from a variety of native forbs, grasses and sedges were planted in the upland sections. Among them are wild bergamot, black-eyed Susan, prairie clover, asters and blue vervain. Tussock sedge, fox sedge, bulrush and milkweed now grow on the restored stream banks.

Being there

The footpath above the creek and a popular paved bike and hiking trail higher up form a loop that’s a half-mile and 204 paces long. Walk it once, then walk it again in the direction from which you came. Mother Nature dances here in leafy summer frocks, on carpets of young native plants, wildflowers, and tall prairie and wetland grasses.

Getting there

For drivers, the streambank project is just a few paces from the off-leash dog area’s parking lot at 6328 Rowland Road.

The restored creek and glen can also be reached by bicycle from anywhere along the Minnesota River Bluffs LRT Regional Trail. From Miller Park at Eden Prairie Road, it’s about a 5.6-mile trek. Head north into Minnetonka and turn right (southeast) onto the trail that skirts Rowland Road. Pedal three-fifths of a mile, then turn left into Lone Lake Park. Follow the south-arching bike trail at the fork. A few yards after passing under the Hwy. 62 bridge, you’re back in Eden Prairie – and you’ll see this sign in the foliage:

The paved trail leads to the dog park. The hiking trail meanders through the rediscovered glen.

Editor’s note: Writer Jeff Strate is a founding board member of EPLN.

Visit the South Branch Streambank Stabilization Project webpage for more information.

South Fork Streambank Stabilization

•  The next phase of the Nine Mile Creek South Branch Streambank Stabilization Project is located downstream of Bryant Lake Regional Park, along the north side of Interstate 494 in Bloomington, just east of Hwy. 169. That phase is still in the planning stages and has yet to be funded.

•  Project manager Brett Eidem recently reported that the South Branch project in Bryant Lake Regional Park stabilized 3,400 linear feet of stream, restored 14 acres of upland habitat and created a new one-acre wetland. Management of select areas of the new vegetation includes some mowing.

•  Three Rivers Park District is partnering with the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District on the bank stabilization project in Bryant Lake Regional Park. Great River Greening has also partnered with the watershed district to secure Outdoor Heritage Fund support, as well as funding from the Clean Water Fund, created through the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.