Winnebago County Community Park 2026 05

A new local park for the post this week. Winnebago County Community Park is a large park between Neenah and Oshkosh. Its also not far from where I grew up.

Key Features

Best Friends Dog Park: A massive 9-acre fenced, off-leash dog park situated in the northeast corner of the grounds. It stays open year-round and includes a completely separate section dedicated to small dogs.

Extensive Disc Golf Course: The park features a sprawling 36-hole disc golf course (with configurations spanning 27 to 36 holes across distinct layouts like the Green & Gold courses) that winds through diverse park terrain.

Massive Soccer Complex: Serving as a primary regional hub for local leagues and tournaments, the park boasts up to 20 soccer fields of varying sizes, split between youth and regulation-size dimensions.

Archery Range: Located on the western side of the park near Shelter 3, this practice area features poly targets and a stand. The shooting lane is fully ADA accessible and accommodates traditional and crossbow-style bows (broadheads are prohibited).

Shared-Use Asphalt Path: An accessible 2.25-mile paved trail loop connects all the primary areas of the park. It includes a formal trailhead at the north end equipped with a shade shelter, picnic table, informational kiosk, and a bicycle repair station.

Stocked Fishing Ponds: Positioned just southeast of Shelter 1, the park features fishing ponds complete with two accessible fishing piers. The waters are stocked with bluegill, pumpkinseed, and largemouth bass for catch-and-release fishing.

Outdoor Fitness Equipment: Located in the “Natural Way” area near Shelter 2, this year-round, all-abilities zone includes seven distinct pieces of static and movement equipment, including a vertical press, chest press, leg press, and a cross-country ski simulator.

Dedicated Rugby Fields: The western portion of the park features two dedicated, full-size rugby fields that regularly host practices and match play for regional clubs like the Oshkosh Rugby Football Club.

Multi-Sport Courts: A central sports court complex situated across from Shelter 4 features dedicated spaces for basketball alongside two courts dual-painted for both tennis and pickleball play.

Rentable Picnic Shelters & Pavilion: The park offers five large, open-air picnic shelters and a central enclosed pavilion available for reservation. These sites feature seasonal restrooms, playgrounds, and permanent concrete bean bag toss (cornhole) boards or exterior ping pong tables.

Review

So this should be a straight forward post for me this week. We drove to the park, parked our car, and hiked the loop. But we found much more when we got to the park.

Signs at the entrance directed us to the left for festival parking. Instead we turned right and parked in one of the northern parking lots.

I took a quick look at the park map and we started our walk. We headed toward the west side of the park, following the black topped hiking trail.

However we took note of a nesting pole designed for birds of prey as we started south. It looked as though it had been used in the past but currently was vacant.

As we walked south we passed a new pavilion and a branch off of the trail into the neighborhood to the west of the park. We then encountered a sign indicating a Memorial to the Winnebago Conservation Club. I tried to find out why there was a memorial here but the only thing I could find is that the park allows Winnebago residents to construct memorials for loved ones.

After passing the memorial we came to the end of the road and a circular parking area. The hiking path continued south however we noticed a gravel path around one of the ponds here. On the north end of the park there are a series of ponds that are linked together.

The one pond we saw a gravel path around looked as though we could circle it with the path. We found, however, that path did not circle the pond. We had chosen to walk over to the pond to circle it but soon saw that the path was interrupted by a low area connecting the middle pond to the swimming pond to the east.

We continued following the gravel path until we reached the parking lot for the swimming pond. At that point we walked back to the paved path and continued south.

All around us was a disc golf course and a man was playing as we passed. We continued south passed the baseball diamonds and a rugby course. The trail turned east and we started to see the festival we read about on the signs at the entrance of the park.

The tents and cars parked on the lawn gave us no indication as to what the festival was about. However the traditional Thai dresses gave us some clue. As we walked my wife looked on her phone and found out the festival was part of the Hmong Memorial Day festivities.

As we passed the tennis courts and started back north, we noticed a bird carrying some plant life. An osprey flew over us toward one of the baseball diamonds. Taking the opportunity we hiked across an open field north of the tennis courts and across a wooden bridge over a mostly dry creek. We hoped to get a few good pictures of the osprey.

Unfortunately our pursuit brought us across the playing field of the Disc Golfer we had seen earlier. However we were able to catch some good pictures of the osprey. We also got pictures of the osprey and his mate. The mating pair was building a nest in the baseball diamond’s flood lights.

After getting our pictures we started back north. Passing parking attendants for the festival, the swimming pond facilities, and the dog park we almost made it back to our car. However my wife found that she had dropped her binoculars. So we had to double back to see if we could find them. About half way back to festival we found them in their case on the blacktop path.

After finding the binoculars we returned to our car. Packing up we left the park by the north exit.

There is a great trail for hiking at Winnebago County Community Park. However our hike was cut short of what we had originally planned because of the festival. The next time we want to hike the park we will check the schedule to make sure that we don’t have to avoid the crowds.

Thanks again for reading and please leave a post.