Лебанон Хиллз: Миннесотаның табиғи қазынасы

Lebanon Hills Regional Park is a park in Eagan and Apple Valley, Minnesota. The park, the largest in Dakota County, contains forests, grasslands, marshes, and wetlands. Winter activities include skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, ice fishing, hiking, and winter mountain biking. Summer activities include mountain biking, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, camping, horseback riding, and hiking.

The park began in 1967 with the acquisition of around one of its largest lakes, Jensen Lake. Forty additional land acquisitions brought the park up to by 2015. The park includes 13 lakes and ponds. Trails in the park allow hiking, biking, skating, skiing, and horseback riding. There is also a campground and a retreat center, Camp Sacajawea.

The visitor center trailhead is the park's main trailhead and gateway. It has canoe, kayak and paddleboard rentals in the summer, cross country ski, snowshoe and kicksled rentals in the winter, park naturalist programs, recreational programs, and picnic areas with charcoal grills. Next to the visitor center is Schulze Lake Beach, with swimming and changing/shower facilities. Special events at the visitor center include a family friendly New Year's Eve party and the Trails by Candlelight event (second Saturday in February). The equestrian trailhead has horse trailer parking and more than 10 miles of wooded trails. The Holland Lake trailhead has a pier for fishing, a picnic shelter, and trails that connect to the rest of the park trail system. The Jensen Lake trailhead has multiple picnicking areas, a large picnic shelter, a playground, and a 2 mile (3 km) hiking loop around the lake. Overall, the park has more than 14 miles of summer hiking trails and 12 miles of winter trails.

In 2013, the park released a draft master plan that included a 6.5 mile (10 km) paved trail for walking, biking, and skating that would connect separate regions of the park. As of 2018, there are paved trails only around McDonough and Schulze Lakes on the park's east side, near the visitor center trailhead.

In 2014, the emerald ash borer was discovered in the park. The beetle was found during a routine visual survey and confirmed by an entomologist from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Before this, forestry staff had been trying to reduce the likelihood of infestation in the park by treating some ash trees with pesticide and removing others. The park is now under a state and federal quarantine to help prevent further spread of the pest.

In 2016, approval was given for a natural gas pipeline to cross the park in a wetland area. The pipeline, which is a project of Northern Natural Gas, will follow an easement already in place. The project has caused some concern because the pipeline's installation will disrupt an area of high ecological diversity. According to the Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District, the pipeline is unlikely to disrupt the wetland in the long term, and the plan will proceed pending approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.