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Bassett Creek Park is an 85-acre community park in Crystal. Family-friendly amenities include a modern playground, a disc golf course, sports courts and fields and a regional trail. Families will find a great deal to explore in this park.

The city has designed the park to provide a “balance of active and passive uses with the northern half of the park primarily programmed for active use and the southern half programmed for passive uses”. This park has an active neighborhood park association and their website is actually more useful for information and activities than the official city page.

Note: If you are using GPS, note that this park is sometimes confused with Bassett’s Creek Park in Minneapolis — a separate park located just over 5 miles southeast of this park.

11 Ideas for Family Fun at Bassett Creek Park

1. Play on the playground. The playground is a standard modern playground, but it is large and has equipment to entertain and challenge a variety of ages. The floor is covered with woodchips and there are plenty of mature trees to provide shade for a blanket.
2. Organize a family game of kickball on one of the baseball/softball diamonds.
3. Go for a family bike ride. Bassett Creek Regional Trail runs through this park.
   Warming house with restrooms
4. Invite the family dog along for a run at the dog park. It is free to use and does not have residency requirements.
5. Explore. The park has a memorial garden, a pond and creek. There is slightly more than a mile of asphalt paths with a footbridge.
6. Try out Pond Dipping off the floating dock.
7. Bring your own ball to take advantage of the sports facilities. We’ve started keeping a playground ball in our car because you can use it to play basketball, volleyball, kickball, gaga ball or dodge ball.  You may want to also consider bringing tennis, horseshoe, frisbees or baseball gear.
8. Enjoy a game of disc golf on the 15-hole course. You can find a scorecard/map here.
9. Trade out your reads at the Little Free Library.
10. Ice Skate in the winter and warm up in the warming house.
11. Take a Family Walk. The paved trail circling the park is approximately 1.3 miles around, plus there are more paved trails through the park. Taking an inner loop, you can limit your walk to closer to a half mile.

Play Gaga Ball at Bassett Creek Park

The City of Crystal has installed a gaga pit in this park (as well as three other parks). We learned this variation of dodge ball at Base Camp a few years ago and it is fun and fast moving.  All you need is a playground ball and a group of players.  You can find the official rules here.

Disc Golf at Bassett Creek Park

The park maintains a 15-hole disc golf course. This is one of Guest Writer Todd’s top three favorite free courses: Fun With Dad: Disc Golf in the Twin Cities. He especially likes that there are not many places to lose a disc on this course.

Birthday Parties & Picnics

There are two shelters at this park available for reservations. Prices are based on the day of the week and residential status, but all are very reasonable. Both shelters have a 50-person capacity and contain a charcoal grill. Choose between two time slots:10:00 am-3:00 pm or 5:00-10:00 pm. Learn more here.

Bassett Creek Dog Park

The fenced-in dog park is free to use and does not have residency requirements. It’s free and open to the public during park hours (6am-10pm). The city keeps cleanup bags available year round to facilitate picking up after your dog. You can find a list of rules here.

Families with children who need supervision may want to be aware that this is not an easy park to supervise both dog and child at the same time.  The playground is across an open space and beyond a screen of trees from the dog park. You may want to bring help.