Even with the blustery spring, progress on the ground

Here's a big, big shout-out to the Nevada Division of Forestry and the Ruby Mountain Hot Shots - both groups volunteered crews to go out and do saw work, clearing a trail corridor for our construction crews!

This is a real win-win... NDF and the Hot Shots will use this project for training, getting ready for the summer fire season. The work they'll do clearing the corridor is very, very similar to what they'll need to do to clear fire lines. We'll have GBI and volunteer crew leaders along to make sure they follow the line of the trail, clearing what they're supposed to clear and dispersing the slash where it's supposed to go.

What a great contribution to the project - not only will it save us a lot of money, but it will allow us to leverage their big volunteer contribution to help us with fundraising in the future. A lot of the folks on these crews are locals, and I hope they take pride in the work they've done when they visit this trail 20 years from now.

+++++++++++++++++

Of course, this means that the rest of us are scrambling a bit, marking nests of migratory birds, marking the exact line of the trail, figuring out clearance and dispersal standards for the fire crews. It's a good scramble, though. The picture is of trail designer Greg Mazu from Singletrack Trails, marking the line for the firefighters this weekend. Thanks to Kendra from JBR Environmental for making sure we don't create problems for the birds with what we're doing.