A group of Warm Springs neighbors teamed up last week with employees from The Elephant's Perch and members of Big Wood Backcountry Trails, a local trail advocacy group, to perform maintenance work on the Heidelberg Hill Trail, near Ketchum. The group repaired rutted sections of trail and worked on drainage on the trail.
The Heidelberg Hill Trail is maintained as a part of the Ketchum Ranger District's "Adopt-A-Trail Program." Through the program, the ranger district supplies hand tools for volunteer trail maintenance efforts. Area businesses, organizations and individuals supply the labor. The program focuses on trails in close proximity. Volunteer efforts allow the district's professional maintenance crews to concentrate on trails that are further afield.
At this work session, the Bureau of Land Management Shoshone Field Office provided the volunteers with a gas-powered brush cutter for trimming tall trailside grasses, which were making it hard for trail users to see oncoming traffic.
The Elephant's Perch recently added the Heidelberg Hill Trail to the trails they maintain in the Adams Gulch area, just north of Ketchum's city limits.
"Some of the people in the neighborhood were eager to work on the trail, so we helped organize a joint effort," said Perch employee and Big Wood Backcountry Trails member Sean McLaughlin. "The Perch maintains Sunnyside and Lane's Trails, and with Heidelberg being so close, it seemed like a natural for us."
"The district's operating on a shoestring, so this helps," said Big Wood Backcountry Trails member Chris Leman, taking a break form the work to admire the group's progress. "Besides, I can't tell you how good this feels."
The trails group has recently received a grant from the Wattis Dumke Foundation for $8,500 for the group's general fund and ongoing operations.
A cattle guard installation project began last spring in Hatty Gulch, near Hailey, will continue Saturday, Aug. 20, at 9 a.m. Two cattle guards will be installed. Interested parties can meet at the corrals at the intersection of Rock Creek Road and the two-track that enters Hatty Gulch.
In addition, a work session is planned to install about a quarter-mile of new trail in Parker Gulch. The Ketchum Ranger District put in for a grant to pay for the construction but did not get it. The trail group volunteered labor with the first phase of work for the evenings of Aug. 23 and 24 starting at 5 p.m.
For more information about the Adopt-A-Trail program, contact the Ketchum Ranger District at 622-5371, or Big Wood Backcountry Trails at 726-2948, or e-mail goodtrails@yahoo.com.
Dust flies on Heidelberg Hill as a volunteer trail crew digs in to complete trail improvements.
