Mountain View Park is an eight-acre parcel located in West Boise, off Ustick Road. The City acquired the land from two families, Susie and Bruce Amos and Alice and Max Handley way back in the start of 1972.

As far as city parks go, Mountain View is considerably less spectacular than ones like Settlers Park, but still serves the local neighborhoods well. There is ample open space in the form of grassy practice fields, basketball courts, bathrooms, and tennis courts. That's more than a lot of parks offer and from the crowds that infect the park on nice days, it's obvious the facilities are appreciated.

In fact, the only way in which this park doesn't measure up is the children's playground. The play set is small and fairly old and pretty weather-beaten by time and our hellacious summer sun. The whole playground isn't very large considering the overall size of the park and it's surrounded by, and set much lower than, a large concrete walkway or what I'd call a...fence...for lack of a better term. Sure, the concrete gives a nice place to sit and watch the kiddies take turns playing on the dink-a-toy, but every time my borrowed five-year old ran towards me I imagined trippage and massive bleeding from a severe head wound or broken nose. Dang, impersonating a parent for an afternoon is hard on the nerves.

On the bright side, at least the knife-toting homeless haven't made it this far west from Downtown.

As with all our public parks equipped with practice fields, they're reserved just about every day by Boise City Parks & Rec for all the various soccer leagues and clubs. Weekends and before the rooster crows are probably going to be your best chances to play Red Rover or an American Sport. Good luck, bub.