If you've tried to duck into Botterill Bottom Park off Whoop-Up Drive lately, you've probably hit a gate that used to be open. That's not a temporary construction hiccup you can wait out until spring. The City of Lethbridge closed that emergency access road to the public in December 2025, and it's staying closed to everyone but construction and emergency crews through the end of 2027, because it now belongs to the Water Treatment Plant upgrade running through the park's western edge.
Here's the part most people walking, biking, or running Botterill Bottom haven't put together yet: that access road doesn't skirt the park's edge. It cuts straight through the Mountain Bike Park, the same stretch of jumps and moguls riders have been using for years. The city's own language on this is blunt: the road "runs directly through the Mountain Bike Park, creating potential conflict points between large trucks and recreational users." That's not a detour routed politely around the fun part. It's construction traffic sharing lane space with the terrain features themselves.
What Actually Changed, and What Didn't
For Fleetwood residents who treat this park as an extension of the backyard, the geography is worth being precise about. Fleetwood sits west of 13th Street South and south of London Road, and Botterill Bottom is the green space most people from the neighborhood reach by cutting down toward Whoop-Up Drive or Scenic Drive. That Whoop-Up Drive route is the one that's now restricted.
The timeline matters too. Whoop-Up Drive itself was damaged in an incident in August 2025, which closed Botterill Bottom Road (the main entrance, not the emergency access road) for repairs. The city confirmed those repairs were finished by mid-December 2025 and reopened the main road. At the same time, it announced the separate, longer-term change: the emergency access road off Whoop-Up Drive would now stay closed to the public except when construction vehicles or emergencies need it, for the duration of the Water Treatment Plant project.
So there are two different roads with two different stories. Botterill Bottom Road, the main entrance, is open and always has been the recommended way in. The emergency access road, the shortcut a lot of regulars used, is the one now reserved for trucks.
What hasn't changed is the park itself. The 3.5 km trail system still links Botterill Bottom to Indian Battle Park and the upper bank trails to the east. The mature cottonwood forest is still there, still the best place in the area to spot deer, beavers, and the birds that use the river corridor. The weir and boat launch are still active, still one of the better fishing spots along the Oldman River, and still worth the same caution the city has posted for years about the undertow near the weir itself. None of that moved.
Why the Overlap Matters More Than the Closure
The easy read on this story is "road closed, use the other entrance." The more useful read is that construction traffic is now sharing physical space with the exact terrain that draws mountain bikers to this park in the first place. If you ride the jumps and moguls at Botterill Bottom, you're not routing around a work zone somewhere off to the side. You're sharing surface with trucks that have priority through late 2027.
That's a longer runway than most neighborhood construction stories get. This isn't a six-week detour while a water main gets replaced. It's a multi-year overlap between a working construction corridor and a recreational feature that a meaningful chunk of the neighborhood already treats as routine.
The Trail Community Is Already Adjusting Around It
The people who maintain these trails haven't waited for the project to finish before doing their jobs. The Lethbridge Trail Alliance, a nonprofit formed in 2020 to advocate for the city's singletrack network, logged a maintenance session on the White Rocks trail inside Botterill Bottom as recently as August 30, 2026, the day before this was written. A volunteer spent three hours mowing roughly 328 feet of trail and marked the section clear and dry. That's not a symbolic gesture. It's the kind of unglamorous, weekly upkeep that keeps a 32-trail network usable while a construction crew works a few hundred meters away.
The Alliance formalized a partnership with the city's Parks team in late 2024, the result of four years of advocacy, and its stated goal is a network that stays enjoyable, inclusive and sustainable even as the demands on it change. Botterill Bottom is one of the parks where that partnership is being tested in real time.
Two organized events already ran through the park this year under these conditions. The Headwinds Cycling Club held its Coulee Cruiser cross-country race at Botterill Bottom on May 1 and 2, 2026, as part of the Alberta Summer Games series. The Prairie Runners Race Association's Coulee Cactus Crawl, a 20-mile trail run through the coulees, launched from the Elks Community Recreation Area on June 6, 2026, with part of every entry fee going to the Trail Alliance. Both events had to plan their courses knowing the emergency access road wasn't available the way it used to be. If race organizers can route around it, so can a Tuesday evening dog walk.
How to Actually Use the Park Right Now
A few practical notes for anyone treating Botterill Bottom as a regular loop through the rest of 2026:
- Enter via Botterill Bottom Road, the main entrance, not the Whoop-Up Drive shortcut. The city has said this directly and it's the only entrance guaranteed to stay open to the public.
- Expect updated signage near the Mountain Bike Park as construction ramps up further through the back half of 2026 and into 2027.
- Check current trail conditions before a ride rather than assuming last month's status still holds. The Trail Alliance and its volunteers post real-time trail reports, and a route that was clear in August can change with a single work session or a rain event.
- The off-leash Scenic Drive Dog Run, part of the same broader park system, is unaffected and remains a separate, dedicated space if the main trails feel busier than usual with construction traffic nearby.
- The Coal Banks Trail, the regional pathway that runs through Botterill Bottom, is still the reliable long route if you want distance without going anywhere near the construction corridor.
What This Means Through Next Year
The project isn't scheduled to wrap until late 2027, which means this isn't a story that resolves itself by next spring. The overlap between construction traffic and the Mountain Bike Park is going to be a fact of life in this park for more than a full year from today. That's worth knowing before you plan a route around it, and it's worth knowing if you're the kind of Fleetwood resident who measures a good evening by whether Botterill Bottom was quiet or not.
The park isn't diminished by any of this. The cottonwood forest, the river, the fishing, the wildlife, the singletrack the Trail Alliance keeps mowed by hand, all of it is exactly what it's always been. What's changed is the front door, and knowing which one to use is the difference between a smooth loop and an unexpected dead end.
If you're already living in Fleetwood and thinking about what a park like this does for your daily routine, or what it might mean down the line if you're ever weighing a move within the neighborhood, Rylan James and the Blackstone team know this stretch of South Lethbridge block by block. Request your free home valuation whenever you're ready to talk about what your Fleetwood home is worth in today's market.
