Explore your backyard: Connect with nature across Jefferson County

Whether you’re exploring Red Mountain Park, Ruffner Mountain, or Turkey Creek Nature Preserve, bringing your dog can make it even more enjoyable. We love seeing four-legged friends on the trails with tails wagging and enjoying time at Remy’s Dog Park, the off-leash dog park at Red Mountain Park. To help keep the trails and parks safe and welcoming for pets, visitors, and wildlife, we’ve put together a few trail and dog park etiquette guidelines.

This summer, Breakthrough Birmingham and Jefferson County Greenways partnered once again to provide rising ninth-grade scholars with an unforgettable week of hands-on outdoor learning through the third annual Outdoor Classroom program.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, the average American child spends as little as 30 minutes per day engaging in unstructured outdoor play, and up to seven hours per day on a screen. Some studies suggest that children may be spending as little as four to seven minutes per day outside. Here at Jefferson County Greenways (JCG), we like to promote green time, not screen time - and one of the best ways that we do that is through our outdoor education field trips, where students experience hands-on learning in nature.

For those in the know, Turkey Creek Nature Preserve is a summertime treat and one of the most popular outdoor destinations and hiking areas near Birmingham, located a mere 30 minutes away. It supports no less than twelve imperiled species thanks to the beautiful creek that carves its way through the preserve for over a mile. And many of the same characteristics that sustain Turkey Creek’s amazing biodiversity, also draw in the crowds.