2/16/2010 Black Canyon trail builders leapfrog to Mayer
Bruce Colbert/The Daily Courier
Rick Jones and Kathy Wittstock joined a handful of Black Canyon Trail Coalition volunteers Saturday morning to start work on the north end of the Black Canyon Trail near Mayer. Federal stimulus money enabled the trail coalition to hire professional trail builders for the southern part of the trail and accelerate its time to start working at the Mayer end of the trail.
Bruce Colbert/The Daily Courier
A small group of volunteers for the Black Canyon Trail Coalition broke ground Saturday morning at the north end of the Black Canyon Trail, which starts at Carefree Highway.
MAYER - Although only a handful of people gathered Saturday morning at a non-descript area along the Big Bug Creek a few miles east of Mayer, a significant milestone occurred in the history of the Black Canyon Trail.
"It is so exciting to be here," said Linda Slay, president of the Black Canyon Trail Coalition (BCTC), which is spearheading construction of the 78-mile trail that starts near Carefree Highway and will end about 8 miles northeast of Mayer. "I just never thought we'd be here so fast."
When the BCTC formed in 2004, Bob Cothern, secretary for the all-volunteer group, figured it would take about 10 years to build. But a nearly half-million dollar federal stimulus grant from the Bureau of Land Management, now has the group set to finish in two years.
The BCTC is using the money to hire professional hand and mechanized trail builders to work the rugged Bradshaw Mountains area north of Black Canyon City toward Mayer. The volunteers are working from Mayer to the south. Somewhere, no one is yet sure where, the trail crews will meet.
When that happens, hikers, bikers and horseback riders (the trail is for only non-motorized use) could start their journey near Lake Pleasant and end at Mayer. In 2008, the U.S. Congress designated the trail a National Recreation Trail, which earned it worldwide attention and a story in National Geographic magazine.
Peter Church, a snowbird who lives in Black Canyon City six months each winter, could not help but be amazed.
"I'm strictly a hiker," Church said while swinging a McCloud hand tool. "I've been working on this since 2006, and I wasn't sure I'd ever see this end of it."
Volunteers have built the majority of the trail by hand using six standard trail tools: Pulaskis, McClouds, shovels, pick mattocks, limb loppers and pruning saws.
Kathy Wittstock is a member of the Prescott Saddle Club. She learned about the trail from a news story in The Daily Courier and eagerly volunteered to work the Mayer-area trail.
"I want to lead the club out here on a ride before it gets too hot," she said while pruning a cat's claw with a limb lopper. "I want to do a wildflower ride here in the spring. I think it would be spectacular."
The southern section of the trail loosely follows old Indian trails built around the 1600s. Turn-of-the-century cattlemen and sheepherders expanded the trail north to the Coconino Plateau for summer grazing. In 1919, the Department of Interior designated the trail a livestock driveway and named it the Black Canyon Stock Driveway.
Some sheepherders still use part of the original northern trail. However, southern valley sheep ranchers truck their sheep to Bloody Basin and from there herd them north on foot. Saturday's trail builders started working within eyesight of a historic sheepherders camp.
In 1969, state legislators designated the stock driveway as the Black Canyon Trails Area, but little work was done on the Yavapai County section of the trail until the BCTC got involved, along with bicycle and equestrian groups.
"I never thought I'd see this," said Keith Jones, a hard-core mountain biker who has been working on the trail since 2005. "I had to see this end."
Jones, a welder by trade, designed a unique fence gate with a modified cattle guard that keeps livestock out but allows hikers and bikers to go around. Horseback riders must open the gate to pass through.
So far, Jones has built and installed three of his specialty gates and is drawing a blueprint for more.
For more information about the Black Canyon Trail and the BCTC, visit www.bctaz.com.
"I'll tell you, getting that stimulus money changed the entire picture for getting this trail built," Slay said.
"This trail is going to be priceless when it's finished," Jones said.
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Article comment by:
No Exclusion Happening
Here are some facts:
1. Studies show that 80% of the people using trails in Yavapai County are non-motorized, but only 20% of the trails are actually non-motorized. 2. Nobody is saying anyone is excluded from non-motorized trails. You may at any time choose to get off of your motorized vehicle and choose to hike, ride a horse, ride a bike, run, walk, walk with your dogs, or even do cartwheels. If you are handicapped, there are local groups who are ready and willing to help you experience the trail too! 3. Motorized folks don't like hikers getting in their way and non-motorized folks don't like motors in their way, so having separate trails keeps everyone happy and safe! 4. The local animals, wild and ranching, prefer the quiet as well as humans and there is less impact on the land from a non-motorized trail.
Please, join us on this trail. Kudos to the trail builders and kudos to the BLM!
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Article comment by:
B.O.'s 57States
500K in tax dollars "(the trail is for only non-motorized use)."
Of course it is. Only certain groups aloud. Exclusion.
One group is consistently excluded from trail projects funded by taxpayer dollars. Exclusion. And people wonder why there's illegal trails.
