Trail building, part 1

I did something a little different this morning. I worked with a group of volunteers building a trail in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. It's over by Scottsdale. That's about an hour away, so I had to get up at the usual time (4:15). It was kind of warm out there. Mid 90's by the time we quit at 10:00, and no wind. I spent most of the time using a pick axe to get bursage out of the path of the trail. Then I'd have to go toss it somewhere that it wouldn't be seen from the trail. That was the best part. I got to rest as I strolled around looking for a place to dump stuff.

When all of the bursage was out of the way, I used the pick axe to pry large rocks loose from the ground. Other people that were moving large rocks out of the trail were just shoving them to the side of the trail. The feng shui was just all wrong. I carried my rocks to the right spots and arranged them to fit in with their new surroundings. I don't think anybody appreciated all the effort I was putting into that, though.

Next weekend, we're supposed to put the finishing touches on the trail. A boy scout troop is going to be helping. A bunch of young guys. Should be a lot easier for us old folks next weekend. It'll be easy for the boy scouts, too. I think we got most of the work done today.

The purpose of the trail is to connect between a future parking lot and another trail. It's short and not real scenic. There are trails that go up into the McDowell Mountains. I'll have to check those out some time when I'm not worn out from building a trail.

I didn't have a real camera with me. Here are a couple of pictures I snapped with my cell phone when we were wrapping up and heading back to our cars. In the first picture you can see what I mean about poorly placed rocks.