After exhaustively chasing down this story, I am pleased to report that the Rock Creek Park Parcourse is being replaced by much nicer equipment. The new fitness stations are manufactured by the Columbia Cascade Company of Portland, Ore., and sold under the name TimberForm.

Laura Kruss, sales supervisor at Columbia Cascade, wasn’t sure which TimberForm product we are getting in D.C.—-you’ve got your Fitness Clusters, which according to the TimberForm Web site, “may be installed at a single compact site or at four different locations” and your Fitness Routes, which Kruss says are “intended to be strung along a trail.”

I told her I’d seen a sign saying that Group C of exercises could be performed in the area below the Connecticut Avenue NW bridge. “That’s probably the Cluster,” Kruss said. As to the suggestion that outdoor fitness trails have fallen out of fashion, Kruss said she couldn’t give me an exact number of how many trails Columbia Cascade has installed, but she says TimberForm and PipeLine products are “very popular all over the country. Also, we’ve put a few in military installations here and in Canada.”

So outdoor fitness trails aren’t in any danger from home equipment and gyms?

“Nope, these are very popular,” says Kruss.