Volunteers make tracks to help spruce up trails

Steven Clark, 20, was up at 6 a.m. Saturday getting ready to go to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Clark is a biker and an avid trail-user, but he wasn't going for recreation — he went to help repair the trail.

This was Clark's fourth year participating in National Trails Day, where volunteers around the country join in repairing trails.

"I use trails quite often, so I like to give back and help as much as possible," Clark said.

This year, about 100 volunteers from Salt Lake City and the county spread out on the Morris Meadows section of the Bonneville Trail, filling dozens of orange garbage bags with weeds, repairing the hiking and biking paths with Pulaskis (pick ax tools), and learning about the trail's history and preservation during a guided tour.

Many organizations joined together to put on the event, including Salt Lake City Watershed, Cottonwood Canyons Foundation, REI, the U.S. Forest Service and Open Space.

Emy Storheim, Salt Lake City's Open Space lands program manager, said 80 percent of Salt Lake City residents live within 20 minutes of the trail, so it gets used quite a bit. In fact, Sarah Bennett, with Salt Lake County Open Space, said it's being "loved to death."

During the Trails Day event, several hikers, bikers and runners were on the trail and made sure to stop and say "thank you" to those repairing the path. One of the bikers said he was going to ride home and wake up his son to come pitch in.

Besides the Bonneville trail being a great resource for recreation, Storheim said it offers an alternative route of transportation for those who bike to work. Storheim uses a nearby trail to bike to work in Salt Lake City from her home in Kaysville, 25 miles away.

Keeping the trails from eroding also protects Salt Lake City's drinking water, said Bob Piscope, with the Forest Service.

He said it's important for people to stay on the trails to prevent further eroding. At one point, Piscope had to do all the repairs by himself.

"Without the volunteers, we'd be in some big trouble," he said.

But why is weeding so important in the preservation of the trail?

Jessie Walthers, director of Cottonwood Canyons Foundation, said the invasive weeds overtake the native plants, which provide food and shelter for wildlife. Weeds like myrtle spurge spread from people's property and can cause real damage to the area.

At least 40 percent of the vegetation around the trail is different from what it used to be, said Steven Stern, a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah and the trail guide for the event. One of the worst weeds is cheatgrass because it easily catches fire and then grows back in place of the native plants the fire burned.

Maintaining the trails does not happen overnight, though, Sternheim said.

"If you take care of the trails, they last a lot longer, just like a car or anything else," she said.

For more information or to volunteer for future events, contact www.cottonwoodcanyons.org or www.SLCgreen.com/openspace.

E-MAIL: slenz@desnews.com