Lazy 5 Regional Park

7100 Pyramid Way, Sparks, NV 89436 (click here to view a map)

Park Ranger Office: (775) 424-1866

Located within Spanish Springs Valley and named after a ranch that formerly occupied the area, this park offers multiple opportunities for a wide variety of recreational activities. There are two children's playgrounds, three large group picnic pavilions (by reservation only), the rentable Cottonwood Room (perfect for large parties or gatherings), multiple 1st come, 1st serve picnic tables with BBQ's, a bustling skatepark, a water play park, regulation soccer fields (by permit only - click here for info), a sand volleyball court, horseshoe pits, "The Hive" recreation facility (with basketball and pickleball courts), open space hiking/biking trails, and much more!

For plant & animal species found here, check out Lazy 5 Regional Park on iNaturalist.

After a one-year pilot program (Nov. 2021 - Nov. 2022), the Washoe County Open Space and Regional Parks Commission voted to continue to utilize three designated soccer fields (in three different parks) for off-leash dog use during certain non-team use times. The unfenced lower park soccer field here at Lazy 5 is one of those fields. Please visit the off-leash dog area webpage for more information.

Summer Concert Series - 2023 Schedule!
Cottonwood Room
Nevada Playground
The Hive
Basketball & Pickleball Open Gym in the Hive
Melio Gaspari Water Play Park
Sugarloaf Pavilion
Spanish Springs Skate Park

Media

Click below to watch a brief video of when the Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation featured Lazy 5 Regional Park:

Park History

In 1950, the renowned Smiths gambling family purchased Jabberwock Gun Club, located on the Pyramid Lake Highway in what today is Spanish Springs, and renamed it Harolds Trapshooting Club. “For more than two decades, [it] was where the elite met to compete,” according to the Trapshooting Hall of Fame website. The Smith patriarch, Raymond I. (“Pappy”) had been instrumental in getting the trapshooting club established. He and Charlie Mapes each had donated $2,500 to secure the building, and Pappy subsequently invested $24,000 into developing the facilities.

Upon opening, they included 12 traps, eight skeet fields and two flyer fields along with a lounge, sundeck, dining room, bar and locker rooms. Later, cases displayed guns of famous trapshooters like Fred Etchen and Arnold Riegger, and the walls showcased hundreds of photos of event attendees. Eventually, the fields would number 32. Pappy also added gambling and a bar to the “gun club,” as it was called familiarly among Harolds Club employees.

Of the three Harolds Club owners, Harold S., Sr. was involved in developing and hosting the inaugural Golden West Grand, the first major Amateur Trapshooting Association tournament, in 1952. He dreamt up the trophy of an engraved, silver belt buckle containing a historic $20 gold piece. At the events, he’d often pass out gifts to shooters and guests. One year he distributed 1,000 white Stetson cowboy hats; another year, it was slot machine-shaped bottles filled with Jim Beam. He’d give rides to contestants’ wives and children up and down the yard line in a yellow dune buggy or on his motorcycle while decked out in a New York Yankees uniform and cowboy hat.

Harolds Trapshooting Club closed on June 30, 1979, when the casino and the landlord of the gun club property failed to agree on terms for a new lease.

Activities: BBQ/Picnicking, Hiking/Biking Trails, Children's Playgrounds, Soccer, Photography, Skateboarding, Interpretive Programs, Horseshoes, Volleyball, Water Play Park, Junior Ranger Program

Facilities: Cottonwood Room, Sunrise Pavilion, Sunset Pavilion, Sugarloaf Pavilion, The Hive, Children's Playgrounds, Soccer Field, Melio Gaspari Water Play Park, Multi-purpose Fields

Parks and Open Space