The park sits ten minutes from most Weston driveways, on the far side of I-75 where the master-planned street grid runs out and the L35A canal starts. Residents drive past the entrance on Weston Road every week without stopping. That is the mistake this post is trying to correct.
Markham is not a "nice regional park." It is a working landscape stitched together out of an abandoned rock quarry, a Broward County shooting range, a levee that looks east into the River of Grass, and roughly fourteen miles of singletrack most South Floridians assume does not exist in South Florida. For a Weston household, the practical question is not whether the park is worth a Saturday. It is which of its five or six separate parks inside the fence you actually want.
The quarry under the singletrack
South Florida is famously flat, and Weston sits on some of the flattest fill in the state. The reason Markham has terrain at all is that the land was dredged for its limestone before the county made it a park. The Markham Park mountain bike trails started over 25 years ago in an area that was once used as a rock quarry, with routes built through the limestone aggregate left behind by the dredging machines, giving trail builders varying terrain to work with in an otherwise flat area.
That single fact explains the whole park. The rock piles became berms, the pits became lakes for jetskiing and fishing, and the flat perimeter became the shooting range, the model airplane field, and the campgrounds. When residents ask why the mountain biking here punches above what a South Florida address should deliver, the answer is that the terrain is industrial before it is recreational.
The trails are maintained by volunteers under the supervision of Broward County Parks and Recreation with financial assistance from the Markham Park Trail Building Fund. If you ride here often, that fund is where the trail-pass dollars end up.
How the pass actually works
Most first-time visits stall at the park office because the access system is not obvious from the road. The short version:
- All riders must first visit the park office near the entrance to view a safety video, sign a waiver, and purchase an access card, which is $25 plus tax per year or $5 plus tax per day.
- A Broward County trail pass and signed waiver are required, passes are sold at the park office, annual passes run January 1 to December 31, and the trail pass is good for Quiet Waters Park too.
- The park is open Monday through Friday 7 AM to 6 PM and Saturday and Sunday 8 AM to 6 PM.
- As of the most recent update, the overall region status for Markham Park is Clear / Green across 59 trails, with one minor-issue trail.
For a Weston family that already owns bikes, the math is unusual for Broward: an annual pass costs about the same as one dinner at Weston Town Center, and it covers two parks.
The trails, in order of shade
Anyone who has tried to walk in Weston in July knows the light. Markham's trail network has a hierarchy you can read by canopy:
- The Lakeside Mile. The Lakeside Mile trail goes through the pine tree forest and along the water's edge, a shaded walk where you can find many birds, reptiles, and insects. This is the trail to bring a stroller onto at 8:15 on a Saturday. Full canopy for most of the loop, water on one side, and slow enough to talk over.
- The main nature trail to the levee. The main nature trail is located across from the dog park and takes you out to the levee for a view of the Everglades River of Grass, where you can see many species of wading birds. The levee is the reason to make this walk. From the top of it, you are looking at the same wetland that ends at Alligator Alley, and the horizon does something no manicured Weston park can replicate.
- The full mountain-bike lap. The full lap threads Yo Momma into Alligator Alley and Blacksnake for ramps and drops, with an Alligator Bypass on the right for an easier line, winds down through the Route 66 connectors with rollovers, punchy g-outs, and mandatory skinnies, then exits back onto the main access road. Named like they mean it. If your teenager has outgrown the paved circuits around Weston Regional Park, this is the next step.
The gap between category one and category three inside a single park is the argument. You can walk a stroller and drop a fifteen-year-old at a rock garden in the same visit, in the same parking lot, on the same $5 day pass.
After the sun drops
Markham is one of the few Broward parks with a real evening program, and it is the part Weston residents are most likely to have never used.
New nature programs and night hikes are led by a Parks Naturalist, are suitable for all ages, start at the park office, ask participants to wear closed-toe shoes and bring drinking water and insect repellent, and cost $5 per person. Book by calling the naturalist line directly, not through the county's general reservation system.
Then there is the observatory. The fun does not have to end after dark: the park offers camping and stargazing through the powerful telescopes at the Fox Observatory until midnight. This is the closest genuinely dark-sky viewing to a Weston address. It is not the Keys, but the canopy of light pollution thins meaningfully once you are on the west side of I-75, and the observatory is set up to take advantage of it.
Markham Park has beautiful nature trails through pine forests and with views of the Everglades, and there is also a butterfly garden called Silent Wings which should not be missed, with new nature programs and night hikes also available. Silent Wings is best in the shoulder hours, mid-morning or late afternoon, when the light is still low.
The park's other lives
Inside the same 669 acres, several parks run in parallel that have almost nothing to do with each other:
- A 669-acre park with an outdoor rifle and pistol range, skeet and trap and sporting clay stands, an archery range and five stand, a radio-controlled airplane field, an RC crawler course, a dog park called Barkham, campgrounds, and sports fields of all kinds.
- A 3.5-acre dog park called Barkham Park with areas for large and small dogs, various structures to play on, and three shelters for canine dates and parties.
- A lake designated for jetski and personal watercraft, large enough for multiple riders.
- A Memorial Fitness Zone built by Memorial Healthcare System and Broward County Parks with outdoor fitness equipment now under a shade canopy, and QR codes on each machine linking to instructions.
- Two boat ramps accessing the State Road 84 canal, also called the New River Canal, and the L35A canal.
Read the list twice. What Weston does not offer inside its own city limits, Markham quietly offers ten minutes west of them: dark-sky viewing, off-road terrain built on quarry rock, a place to legally discharge a firearm, an Everglades-facing levee, and a lake for personal watercraft. Weston's master plan gave the town lawns, lakes, and playgrounds. Broward County gave Weston an escape hatch out the back.
Why this matters if you live west of I-75
The pattern this post is drawing is one Weston homeowners already sense but rarely name. The master plan that makes the town orderly also makes it homogeneous. Every park inside city limits was landscaped by the same hand. Markham is the exception the town keeps on the other side of a highway, and it exists because Broward County held the land and let it stay strange.
For a family relocating into a Weston Hills or Windmill Ranch home, that is the piece the neighborhood tour usually skips. The A-plus schools and the 14 manicured parks are on every checklist. What is not on the checklist is the quarry-built singletrack, the observatory open until midnight, and the Naturalist office at the end of a $5 phone call.
A short July playbook, then:
- Saturday 8:15 AM. Lakeside Mile with a stroller and coffee, then breakfast back in Town Center.
- Saturday 7:00 PM. Naturalist night hike, closed-toe shoes, bug spray. Call ahead to reserve.
- Sunday morning. Annual pass at the park office, one lap of the outer loop for a rider who has never seen the alligator bypass, and the small-dog side of Barkham on the way out.
- Any clear Friday. Fox Observatory after dinner, staying past 10 PM if the sky cooperates.
None of this is a secret. All of it is under-used by the people who live closest to it, which is why every Saturday the Weston plates in the parking lot are outnumbered by out-of-town riders who drove an hour to get here.
If you are thinking about a home on the western edge of Weston, or you already own one and are quietly asking what the neighborhood is worth to you, the answer is partly on the other side of I-75. When you are ready to talk about how that edge factors into a purchase, a sale, or a valuation, Sklar Team is the family-led team that has been working these streets, and the trails behind them, for decades. Request your free home valuation and let us tell you what your address is really priced against.