Sage International School Brings 80 Students to Work Hard on the Trails

What day, on Tuesday we had a total of 89 volunteers from the Sage International school join us on our local trails to get some work done.

This is the 3rd year we have been working with the school and their 8th grade class. With this many volunteers it was full team effort, teachers and chaperones from the school being a major part of the success in our day on the trail.

All these hands helped us covered a lot of ground, on both Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Ketchum Ranger District trails.

We got out on Murdock, working on maintaining the trail and improving accessibility. This trail is one of only a few that creates an opportunity for wheelchair and adaptive users to get out to a wilderness area. The work this group did help to keep this trail accessible, removing loose rocks that can be difficult for wheels to navigate and clearing corridor so vegetation isn't encroaching on the trail.

At the Wood River Campground - they tackled a the vegetation around a boardwalk that goes through  a riparian area. A seemingly simple task but if we don't get to it yearly that section of trail quickly becomes overgrown and hard to pass through.

On Curly's - we started the process of reducing the cupped/incised sections of trail. These sections are uncomfortable on foot, and difficult for either horses or bicycles as the narrow trail with steep sides makes it hard for users to "stay the trail." 

In the morning this group got to scour the hillside for rocks before starting to use mini sledge hammer to crush rock and start to raise the tread level. The afternoon was spent digging a borrow pit, to source dirt to cover the rocks and make a smooth trails surface.

By the end of the day, we not only got some trail work done, but I a better understanding of how much work it takes to keep our trails open and accessible to all users. Even when you can't tell we were there!