Volunteers work on Greenhorn for National Trails Day

Even as the landscape out Greenhorn is settling back into place we are still working on this new section of trail. With the number of people  and variety of users, dog walkers, horses, dirt bikes, out using this section of trail from the trailhead to the new Imperial bridge we want to keep it wider and easier for folks to pass and see each other coming.

This mean we will need to continue with some annual trail touch up for the first 5 ish years.

On Saturday, we had a great collection of folks come out to do just that, FS staff and family, returning volunteers, WRTC staff, some of our Hybrid Trail Crew and then Backcountry Horsemen coming out to get us some lunch at the end of our day.

Beyond the work that we got done on the trail, Greenhorn really highlighted all that trails includes beyond just the "dirt". There is a tendency to focus on the tread when we talk about our work and trails, but when we are planning these projects we are usually looking far beyond the 4 ft area that we all pass through.  Trail design, flora, fauna, water flow, user safety and experience to name a few.

We put this trail in two years ago to move the trail out of a wetland area and reduce seasonal issues with trail access. Trail users get more reliable spring access to the trails, but  if we look across the landscape we can see how this allowed beavers and birds to reclaim this section of Greenhorn.

Even at mid day the birds where making a ruckus, beaver have been busy and where we once walked for planning is now a pond. Looking a little closer to the trail we see the plants and wildflowers that we planted and seeded taking over the soils we disturbed. The work we have been putting in is starting to blend into the landscape, when we do things right it quickly become hard to tell we put so much work into it.

The trail is settling in, but our volunteers that have been coming out year after year have experience first hand what that actually takes.

Thanks for showing up and working in the dirt with us!!