NEWS:

National Trails Day, an annual celebration of the delectation of dirt, was this past Saturday, June 1^st.  It’s always been our biggest volunteer event of the season and we can typically expect anywhere between 30-70 volunteers to participate. This year, however, we were pleasantly surprised and slightly overwhelmed, to have over 120 eager trail beavers show up at the Highland Drive trailhead. 

Now, when you have enough volunteers to perform THE WAVE (thanks Emma and Sean for instigating), that’s a LOT of humans!  Yes, as the bodies stretched out single file along the gravel road entrance to the trailhead, arms arose from one end of the line-up to the other.  THIS was uncharted territory! 

Our team quickly scrambled to break down this horde of humanity into three groups of 20-30 volys, depending upon need for our pre-established projects.  Thankfully, our friend, and resident noxious weed expert, Sara Jo Dickens, offered to take a group of volys to remove thistle along Round Valley Express.  The fifth and final group were put on a large-scale lopping mission, using all 30 sets of lops.                

Two of the three projects that we had been prepping for included work to alleviate a mud bog created by a seasonal spring that impacts sections of the Big Easy and the Ramble On trail directly above it.  Zach, Emil and team headed up a unique, French drain/raised-tread project that was probably the most labor-intensive of the three projects, involving the transport and burial of large rock, pea gravel and road base. Just uphill, on Ramble On, Sean, Derek and their team relocated and dug new tread, installed erosion matting and filled said matting with pea gravel and road-base. These projects will create a firm, dry, sustainable trail surface while this spring is a-seeping.

Emma, Matt and their team headed up project #3 that included drainage work and re-establishing the full tread-width to accommodate adaptive bikes on Bourbon Street and the Big Easy, completing close to a mile of trail. 

Sara Jo’s team removed and bagged a ton of thistle and Alec’s team gave Rambler and Rusty Shovel a nice haircut.  While the morning may have looked like organized chaos, and it was, it was also a tremendous success, and we couldn’t have been more stoked with the outcome.                 

Completing some meaningful work is always a goal but far more importantly, National Trails Day is a day to connect and interact with our local trails community. Our crew had this amazing opportunity to work side-by-side with long-time locals (including some early trail-builders), newcomers, high-school mountain bike teams and coaches from PC and the Salt Lake Valley, and trail users of all types and age demographics.  The volys get a crash course in trail-building, trail maintenance and noxious weeds, as well as a better understanding of the effort that goes into the stewardship of it all. Hopefully, everyone walks away with a sense of pride and ownership in this amazing, inclusive, free-to-the-public, community amenity. 

Trails are so much more than simply recreational dirt paths – they connect us.  They have become an integral part of our local culture, our history and our collective DNA. This town and our quality of life wouldn’t be the same without them.  May we never take them for granted.         

Have a great one out there!