Лесничество штата Калифорния и ассоциация тропы Арнольд Рим провели совместный семинар по уходу за путями

The Stanislaus National Forest thanked the Arnold Rim Trail Association this week for partnering with the forest’s Calaveras Ranger District to host and fund a three-day trail care workshop last month, training 12 volunteers from the Ebbetts Pass corridor and four U.S. Forest Service staff. The forest and the association partnered to hire two professional instructors from the nonprofit International Mountain Bicycling Association, or IMBA, and its Trail Solutions branch, which provides fee-for-service consulting and construction services. Volunteers and Forest Service staff spent three days working and building stretches of trail together. That experience helped strengthen the existing partnerships between the association and the forest, and it helped develop new volunteer trail crew leaders, the Forest Service stated in an announcement. The three-day trail care workshop took place over the first weekend of August in the Calaveras Ranger District, where the Arnold Rim Trail is located. People with the Arnold Rim Trail Association, or ARTA, emphasized that the workshop will benefit all groups who use the trail — hikers, runners, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. “The workshop paired IMBA’s technical curriculum — sustainable trail design, erosion control, and crew leadership — with ARTA’s own administrative training on safety, Forest Service compliance, and workday planning, satisfying a core requirement toward full Volunteer Trail Crew Leader certification,” the association stated in an announcement. “Beyond the skills, the weekend was about relationships: volunteers and Forest Service staff spent three days working, problem-solving, and building trail side-by-side, strengthening the partnership between ARTA and the Calaveras Ranger District as much as it developed new crew leaders.” Volunteers and Forest Service staff put their training to work during the workshop. They improved trail drainage, durability, and rider/user experiences on the Arnold Rim Trail between posts 31 and 35 by installing grade reversals. People with the association said the work amounted to “a small stretch with a big payoff,” because better water management means less erosion, less maintenance, and a smoother trail for years to come. The trail work did not change or add to existing trails. It maintained and improved the trails. When the Arnold Rim Trail Association was founded in 2006, its core stated goal was to create, construct, maintain, and promote a non-motorized, multi-use recreational trail system, capitalizing on existing roads and trails in the forested lands around Arnold. Today the existing sections of the Arnold Rim Trail stretch more than 20 miles, and future plans include expanding the trail network to cover 35 to 40 miles. The eventual goal is to complete a 35-mile to 40-mile loop trail, circumnavigating the town of Arnold, connecting local communities, public lands, and parks for hikers, runners, mountain bikers, and equestrians. “A big thank you and shout out to the Arnold Rim Trail Association,” Stanislaus National Forest staff posted to social media on Monday this week. “Thank you to everyone who gave up a weekend to invest in ART, in the Forest Service partnership, and in the trail,” the association posted in mid-August. “This cohort of newly-trained leaders, working hand-in-hand with the Calaveras Ranger District, is exactly the capacity ARTA needs to keep running self-sufficient, ARTA-led workdays across the corridor for years to come.” The International Mountain Bicycling Association is based in Boulder, Colorado. Hiring two professional instructors from IMBA Trail Solutions for the three-day trail care workshop cost $12,000, and the expense was shared by the Arnold Rim Trail Association and the Forest Service, said ARTA Chair Greg Novacek. For more about the Arnold Rim Trail and the Arnold Rim Trail Association, go to https://arnoldrimtrail.org. For more about the International Mountain Bicycling Association and IMBA Trail Solutions, go to www.imba.com. Contact Guy McCarthy at [email protected] or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @GuyMcCarthy.