A three-mile stretch of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail between Boston Trailhead and Lock 29 in Peninsula will shut down starting Aug. 24 and stay closed through Nov. 20, as crews tear out and rebuild the aging wooden boardwalk that carries hikers and bikers across the Stumpy Basin wetland. No detour route will be available during the closure, and half the parking spaces at Boston Trailhead will be off-limits for the duration of the project.
The closure, confirmed by the National Park Service, comes as officials look to replace a boardwalk that has outlived its usefulness. According to Cleveland.com, the Stumpy Basin boardwalk was built in 1991 and is now deteriorating and at the end of its serviceable life, per the park's own assessment. Cuyahoga Valley National Park Superintendent Lisa Petit said the park is replacing the boardwalk before safety hazards become an issue, and that the broader slate of projects will produce a much improved and safer Towpath Trail experience.
The new structure won't just replace what's there — it will be wider than the original, giving visitors more room to pull off the trail and take in the view of the wetland below, according to the same report. Hikers and cyclists looking to avoid the closure entirely can park at Stanford Trailhead instead, and the park has set up a phone line, 440-717-3890, for visitors with questions about the project.
A Second Closure Already Planned for Next Spring
This isn't the only disruption planned for the corridor. The National Park Service has already scheduled a second closure of the same trail section from March 29 through April 21, 2027, suggesting the Stumpy Basin work will stretch across two separate construction windows. In the meantime, park officials expect to reopen the trail segment between Lock 29 and the railroad tunnel — about three-quarters of a mile north of Peninsula — by early September, well ahead of the full project's November completion date, according to WKYC.
The Stumpy Basin project is just one piece of a much larger maintenance push rippling across the park's 20-mile stretch of the Towpath Trail this summer and fall. Weekday-only closures between Hunt House Trailhead and Beaver Marsh for resurfacing are running from Aug. 17 through Sept. 18, while crews are also tackling culvert replacements between Station Road Bridge and Red Lock trailheads and sinkhole repairs between Station Road Bridge Trailhead and Frazee House, per the park's conditions updates.
Why the Towpath Trail Carries So Much Weight
The Towpath Trail isn't a minor amenity inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park — it's the main draw. Towpath Trail visits account for 68% of all visits to the park, according to the National Park Service, and the trail draws more than 1.5 million visitors annually. That kind of traffic translates directly into dollars for surrounding towns: a National Park Service report found that 2.9 million visitors to the park in 2023 spent $139 million in nearby communities, generating a total local economic impact of $225 million and supporting 2,136 jobs.
The stakes have only grown since. Cuyahoga Valley National Park welcomed more than 3 million visitors in 2025, ranking as the 11th most-visited national park in the country, according to National Parks Magazine. The park's 20 miles of Towpath Trail also connect into a much larger regional network spanning 93 completed miles between downtown Cleveland and New Philadelphia, part of the broader Ohio & Erie Canalway system.
A Wetland With Deep Roots and Ongoing Research
Stumpy Basin itself carries a long history that predates the boardwalk by more than a century. The roughly 30-acre wetland, which sits within the Cuyahoga River's 100-year floodplain, served as a 19th-century boat turnaround and layover area on the Ohio & Erie Canal, since canal boats were longer than the 40-foot-wide waterway and needed room to turn around. Later, it became a major ice-harvesting hub, where 12-inch-thick blocks were packed in sawdust and shipped off to Cleveland and Akron, according to the National Park Service.
Today, the site plays a different role: park scientists have designated Stumpy Basin one of 20 high-priority sentinel wetlands monitored across Cuyahoga Valley National Park to track biological diversity and ecosystem health, significant in a state that has lost 90 percent of its original wetlands. The boardwalk area also hosts a Chronolog photo station, where visitors' own snapshots help citizen scientists and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative partners, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy, track long-term vegetation changes and manage invasive plants.
The timing lands during the park's 50th-anniversary era — Cuyahoga Valley was established by Congress as a national recreation area on Dec. 27, 1974, before being redesignated as Ohio's only national park in October 2000. It's also not the first time trail access here has been interrupted for infrastructure repairs: in December 2024, a Towpath Trail section in Brecksville closed temporarily for riverbank stabilization to protect the trail from Cuyahoga River erosion.
