TOLEDO, Ohio — Temperatures fell below freezing over the Christmas weekend and although many Toledo employees have the holiday off Jimmy Ray, a technician at Metroparks Toledo, is working hard so that everyone can enjoy the parks' scenery.
Ray said his daily duties consist of cleaning trash from trails and cleaning communal areas like restrooms. A typical day begins around 7 a.m. for most Metroparks technicians.
On especially snowy days, cleaning starts even earlier than usual at 4 or 5 a.m. When Winter Storm Elliott hit the Toledo area overnight Friday, that was one of those early days for Ray.
"Some snow drifts are building up everywhere," he said. "I did some shoveling and spread some salt. I'm using the plow a little bit in some heavier places."
He said he has been in Toledo his entire life and studied natural resources in college. For Ray, the joy in his job comes from being a part of one of Toledo's major development projects.
"It's really exciting," he said. "My first day down here, we helped do stuff with Glass City (Metropark) and the pavilion planting trees and watching this thing just grow out of nothing. I remember when it was just flat land, nothing down here."
The metroparks are open 365 days a year. Interactive maps are available on the Metroparks website, and on the app, to help you find the best trails to walk on. Metropark representatives said parkgoers can run, walk or even bike all year round, too.
Nate Ramsey, the Metroparks Toledo Chief Operations Officer, said the people viewing the maps can zoom in on areas of the parks and use filters to see if a trail is plowed, among other filters.
"They can click a little button that tells them is this a plowed trail where they might be able to walk their dog, even if it snowed," Ramsey said.
The park representatives said if a trail is not clear, you can contact them to clear it. Luckily, technicians like Ray say they plan to help maintain the parks for a long time.
"This could be a really cool end goal for me," Ray said of working at Toledo Metroparks. "It's a really cool organization to be a part of."
Toledo has 19 metroparks and 67 trails totaling 200 miles. The 12 hard trails are cleared of snow by technicians and the dirt trails are repurposed in the winter for cross-country skiing.