Saturday morning, March 24th, nine excited Trail Tamers from central Texas set off on a new adventure to Bullfrog, Utah on the upper reaches of Lake Powell within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Two members from Grand Junction, Colorado met us at the site. By mid-Sunday afternoon everyone was present and accounted for. We Texans made good time even though we stopped to see a few sights along the way.
We were invited to Utah by Justin Glasgow, Interpretive Officer for Glen Canyon NRA, who heard about us from John Heiner, Chief Interpretive Officer at Fort Davis National Historic Site in west Texas. Justin was based at Fort Davis for a while and trained by John who showed him the trail work done by Trail Tamers over the years! When Justin moved on to Bullfrog, Utah, the first thing he noticed was the lack of trails in the area and, now that Lake Powell is 103ft. below its normal level, many people have been asking about hiking opportunities. That’s when he contacted us to see if we would consider coming out there to utilize our expertise!
What a great opportunity to see a different kind of place! Working in red sandy soil was a lot different than working in a forest, or our own Texas hill country, but I think we did a darned good job. Numerous rock cairns were built to define a trail on the undulating red rock hills, and a new trail was cut into the side of a large hill leading up to the top where you could look out over Lake Powell. A large and unique cairn was built by Raylene & Mary to mark the spot. Some of us moved heavy rocks to mark the trail entrance near the parking area (thank goodness for those rock cradles!). We then fixed a social trail created by people following an old cow path. We decided it was best to leave it where it was, so we added a series of about 15-20 check dams from the bottom all the way to the top of the hill and pulled in the sides of this deeply rutted “trail” to fill in behind them. This leveled it out nicely and made it look more like a trail!
When we finished those trails, Justin asked if we would mind looking at another area several miles away, just off the famous Burr Trail...a 68 mile winding, mostly gravel road connecting Bullfrog to Boulder, Utah through the beautiful painted rock country of Capitol Reef National Park, Waterpocket Fold and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This area actually lists a 3-mile round trip trail in a park service booklet but the trail was seldom used because it was nearly impossible to find! So, we spent our last two days building a series of large rock cairns to guide people to a place at the end of the trail called Pedestal Alley where there are numerous huge pedestal rocks in various sizes & shapes.
The weather went from being a bit chilly on the first day but warmed up nicely and then the winds blew in on the second day and nearly sandblasted us. When they subsided, we managed to get more done but later in the week, it began to get colder and on our last workday, it started drizzling. At least we had a nice, warm house to go back to…compliments of the Park Service!
At the end of our time there…Justin presented each of us with numerous items to show his appreciation. In all, we contributed nearly 300 hours of volunteer labor and put in over two dozen rock cairns plus 15-20 check dams.
On our way back home to Texas, I used my National Park Pass to treat my passengers to a side trip to Arches, Canyonlands & Mesa Verde National Parks. What a wonderful trip this was! My thanks to Raylene Welch & Bob Weglarz, Debbie Galloway, Mary Zeitler, Sharon Highnote, Chris Argyros, Bo Bosarge, Ralph & Debbie Ploeger, and my dear sister, Shirley Harlow.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
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