Volunteers marching up Imperial.
The trails in Greenhorn have seen some maintenance in May. Motorcyclist volunteers have been busy cutting out trees and the Ketchum Ranger District Trail Crew has been tackling a number of projects in the drainage. They have been cleaning drains, repairing sections of trails that washed out, and they recently built a useful reroute along the Mahoney Trail. The reroute was needed in a spot where the creek was running on the trail for about 500 feet.
Justin Blackstead, Phil Ley, and Sara Gress connecting old to new.
Rerouting the trail onto the nearby hillside brought the trail out of the bottom of the drainage and allowed for it to be well drained. Additionally, in future years, this improvement should allow for the Mahoney Trail to be opened a little earlier.
Crew members Blackstead and Murphy Danko performing finish work on the reroute.
The KRD Trail Crew designed and built the reroute on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Presently, the crew includes 4 crew members, but will be expanded to six in the coming weeks.
About half of the Sage School Crew.
On Thursday Crew Boss Justin Blackstead and I led a group of 17 students and 3 teachers, from The Sage School, on a trail maintenance project on the lower reaches of the Greenhorn and Imperial trails.
The work was a brushing project, where the volunteers used loppers to cut back vegetation that was growing in and onto the trails. Besides getting a lot of useful work accomplished the event provided a good opportunity to discuss trail sustainability and the tools and techniques used in keeping trails maintained.
Sage School volunteers brushing back the trail.
Being on relatively busy trails made for a lot of give and take with trail users, as we worked our way along. This provided us with opportunities to talk about sharing the trails and using them responsibly.
Much of the Greenhorn trail network is running, hiking and riding very nicely right now. Some of the very highest reaches are still holding snow, are muddy, or have not been cut out. So, some of the more distant areas of Greenhorn will need a bit more time before they are opened. That said, there are loop opportunities available in the drainage, including the Imperial-Greenhorn loop and the Cow Creek Connector to Mahoney loop. Check the BCRD Summer TraiLink site from time to time to stay up to date on any changes in the open or closed status of the trails in the area.