Rebuilding the historic Camp Lamoille lodge, and other fire news

Before the burn

I attended a meeting this evening of the Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group, where representatives from the US Forest Service, the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Nevada Division of Forestry and NNSG reported on current conditions and potential directions for restoration after the devastating Lamoille Canyon fire.

There are a lot of updates to report:

CAMP LAMOILLE - The Elko Host Lion's Club has started a GoFundMe account to rebuild the historic Camp Lamoille Lodge.  Click here to donate.  The club is trying to raise $200,000, and the effort is just getting off the ground.  Donate, and share that you did on your social media accounts.  Every nickel counts.

The camp is on the National Register of Historic Places... no word on whether the Lions will be chasing potential funding sources through that listing.

The USFS district ranger, Josh Nicholes, stated that the USFS is "100% behind" efforts to rebuild the historic lodge.  It was originally designed by USFS architects, and built in 1939 using funds provided by philanthropist Max C. Fleischmann.

LAMOILLE CANYON ROAD - Right now, the road is the USFS' biggest concern in the canyon.  The guard rails on the road burned, making it much easier for drivers to plummet down steep cliffs while they're gawking at the burn area.  In addition, house-sized rocks above the road have been destabilized and there is major concern that one or more of them will come crashing down without warning.  There is also significant smaller rockfall - smaller than the huge rocks but still large enough to smash a windshield and take out a driver.  The USFS has experts working on the problem, but it won't be solved in the next day or two.  Right now the tentative date for reopening the road is November 30th.

RESEEDING - It's critical that reseeding be done quickly in order to minimize the spread of invasive weeds in the canyon.  The agencies plan to reseed with a mix of native grasses, and don't plan to introduce non-native species that may be more attractive to specific wildlife species (for example, mule deer).  Unfortunately, seed availability for forbs (broadleaf plants like native wildflowers) is very, very limited this year, with poor growing/seed gathering conditions and the huge demands on seed supplies from the many western fires under restoration.

Right now NDOW plans a sagebrush seed gathering day for volunteers to be held December 1st, with the location and volunteer information to be determined.  NNSG plans on hosting a seed gathering day targeting mountain mahogany in November, date and location TBD.  Unfortunately, mountain mahogany will be very, very slow to re-establish, but seeding will at least give them a chance.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the fire spread so quickly that much of the canyon's root stock survived the blaze.  The fire spread more than 150 acres every 15 minutes... the entire 9000+ acres were on fire in only 12 hours.

TRAILS - The news is less good when it comes to trails.  The USFS is considering closing the Secret-Lamoille Trail for a year in order to prevent people from cutting the (now very visible) switchbacks in the first half mile, and letting the seedings get established.  I suggested that there might be other ways of approaching the problem, as are often used in Colorado and other more trafficked areas where many feet need to stay on the trail.  It's all very early in the process, but decisions are being made so now's the time to pick up the phone if you'd like to see another solution.

RESEARCH AND EDUCATION - NNSG plans on doing research into fire effects and recovery at a couple of different sites in the burn area.  In addition, they plan on partnering with the agencies and Friends of Lamoille Canyon to provide education and information on the effects of fire and how nature recovers after a burn.

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW - The fire remains 90% contained.  Crews are working to mitigate hazards in the burn area, in addition to the road.  They're felling hazard trees in the campgrounds, clearing streams to prevent spring flooding (thank you, says this Lamoille resident), repairing dozer lines, treating noxious weeds and working on slope stabilization - where they can.  It's steep up there and there isn't much they can do in a lot of places.

Overall, the agencies are very much facing a triage situation given the number of massive fires this year, including the South Sugarloaf fire in Elko County earlier this summer.  That fire burned a popular USFS campground just below the Wildhorse Dam, as well as thousands of acres, hundreds of miles of fence, and hundreds of miles of roads.  All of the dozer line needs to be reseeded, firebreaks and green breaks need to be established, invasive weeds need to be treated.  All while the agencies are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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

I spoke this afternoon with a woman whose friend was at the Spring Creek Rifle Range when the fire started.  Apparently there were a number of people using the range to sight in their rifles that morning - every table was in use.

That gives me hope that the fire investigators might have more than tracks and casings to work with.  We'll see.

Fire map and update

The ash is starting to settle a bit, and the firefighters have released a map showing the perimeter of the Range Two fire that burned Lamoille Canyon, Seitz Canyon, and Right Fork Canyon, and portions of Thomas Canyon, Hennen Canyon, Snell Canyon and Talbot Canyon.

The good part is that the highest parts of Seitz and Lamoille Canyons didn't burn, protecting the fisheries in Seitz and Lamoille lakes, as well as the incredible mountain ecosystems there.  The top of Right Fork Canyon survived the blaze, as well.  The bad part is that four trails were badly burned, including the Secret-Lamoille Trail, the Seitz Canyon Trail, the Right Fork Canyon trail, and the old guide trail that runs between Pete's Corner and Talbot Canyon - the Talbot-Lamoille Trail.

Joe Doucette from NDOW tells me that the ash from the fire will have a significant negative impact on the aquatic life in the effected area, which is disturbing.  Snell Creek is home to endangered Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, and Lamoille Creek has always been a popular fishing stream.  All of them drain into the Humboldt River, which waters much of northern Nevada.

NDOW and the USFS have their work cut out for them assessing and mitigating the damage.  Josh Nicholes, the USFS district ranger, tells me that the existing closure through Nov. 30th is to give them time to get started with that process, but that the closure may be lifted earlier than that based on conditions.

There is a volunteer move afoot to help with reseeding, deadfall removal, and other necessary recovery activities.  I'll post up information as it becomes public.

Watch this space.

Oh, what fun it is to build!

There is just something completely awesome about getting new trail on the ground.

The IMBA/Subaru Trail Care Crew blew through town this week. Their goal was to host a couple of days of classroom learning and a few hours of on-the-hill training, getting a great group of volunteers up to speed on how to get new trail on the ground. It's a pretty big deal, as IMBA has only one (count 'em) trail care crew in the country. As it turns out, the local BLM office has a new rec guy who's a bit of a fireball, and one of the first things he did when he clocked in for work was start lobbying to get these guys here. It was a real coup.

Fortunately for all concerned, there was (and is) a shovel-ready project available to use as a trail building classroom - the new bike trail system being built at SnoBowl! So, lucky us, some real trail experts used our local hill as a classroom to teach the nuts and bolts of getting new trail on the ground.

Pinch me, is this for real??  :D

About twenty folks joined Jordan Carr and Lani Bruntz from IMBA after the classroom sessions, and built several hundred feet of very fun new trail over the course of a few hours. Best of all, after the build, the IMBA team walked up the route of the under-construction beginner MTB trail to give us ideas on what we can do to make it a better riding experience for newer riders. Most of the volunteers expressed interest in weekly build days to get a top-to-bottom trail completed before summer, so that we can run the lift for lift-served riding once school's out. 

To call this a banner day for SnoBowl would be a profound understatement.

Here are a few pics of the build:

The pre-talk.  Several of the folks on the crew had not used trail tools before, and the IMBA folks gave an overview of safe tool handling.

A determined bunch

Lani and Jordan demonstrating the work sequence that ends with finished trail.

Putting that instruction to good use

Some very cool progress happening here!

The finished product - a phenomenal upgrade from the previous route

Here's a big, healthy THANK YOU to Mike Setlock from the BLM for bringing the IMBA team in, to Subaru for footing the bill for such a great program, to the City of Elko for the volunteer lunch, Great Basin College for the classroom space, to Jordan and Lani from IMBA for being such enthusiastic and skilled trail evangelists, and most of all to the volunteers who showed up to learn how this all works. It's so incredibly cool to see what we can all accomplish working together!

Some much needed maintenance on the Ruby Crest Trail

Boy, was this ever needed.  Some great work done last summer by the Friends of the Nevada Wilderness, brushing out and maintaining the Ruby Crest Trail between Overland Lake and Harrison Pass.  While they were there, they also did a lot of work on the Overland Trail, between Overland Lake and Ruby Valley.

Too bad these guys can't just move here permanently, there is a LOT of work to be done up there!

National Trails Day!

Can you believe it? My favorite day of the year is here! NATIONAL TRAILS DAY is coming up on Saturday! We're back up at the SnoBowl again this year, and if we get enough help will have a NEW bottom-to-top hiking and mountain biking trail complete and ready to use. The trail was roughed in last summer by volunteers and NDF crews, and if the stars align we should have it DONE by the end of work on Saturday.


Here's a write-up that appeared on the front page of today's Elko Daily Free Press. Thanks, guys, for helping us get the word out!

Anyway - This SATURDAY, June 8th. 8AM at the Elko SnoBowl. Wear work clothes and gloves. We'll provide tools and lunch. Let's get this baby done! Thanks to Raleys, the BLM and Event Source for helping us make this happen!

Flower show in Soldier Canyon

With the dry, dry conditions we've been "enjoying" this year, flowers have been few and far between, much to my dismay. However, usually reliable Soldier Canyon is coming through, and those looking for flowers will do well to head to this somewhat off-the-beaten-path destination.

There's no possibility that Soldier or any other canyon in the Rubies this summer is going to have the riotous display that we saw last year. But, I saw a very nice array of arrowleaf balsamroot, penstemon, rock geranium, columbines, chokecherries, etc. etc. etc. Certainly plenty to provide happy respite for my flower-starved soul.

It's gorgeous up there right now, and spring is slowly marching to higher elevations. As I gained elevation walking up the trail, the flower show morphed into blooming serviceberry bushes, and then into a generous scattering of buttercups. And then into plants just coming out of winter dormancy. There were butterflies everywhere, and a symphony of birds, bugs and chuckling creek... dappled sunshine and wide open Nevada blue skies. And I had the whooooooooooole place to myself.

It doesn't suck living here, truly.

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

If you're going to head up Soldier Canyon, or to any lower-elevation destination in the Rubies, be aware that there are rattlesnakes around. This isn't a deal-killer as far as trip planning is concerned, because they're every bit as interested in avoiding you as you are in avoiding them. Just stay on the trails, be deliberate about where you're putting your hands and feet, and give them plenty of room to get away.

Rattlesnakes are very courteous animals, when you think about it. They let you know they're there, generally before you get close enough to cause problems for them. Show them the courtesy of not harassing them, and let them get back to their jobs of keeping the rodent population under wraps.

A bit of rattlesnake lore from my rancher dad, who knew these mountains better than I ever will: common "knowledge" among the old timers here is that there aren't any rattlesnakes above the elevation of Scout Camp in Lamoille Canyon, at about 7200'. Couldn't tell you how accurate that is, but the fact is that I've never seen a rattler above that elevation, and I'm willing to bet that my dad didn't, either.

Another tidbit from my dad: stay out of rattler territory in late July/early August, when they're shedding their skins. He always told me that they were a lot more irritable at that time of the year, as well as about half blind. I was never interested in testing the theory and so have avoided lower-elevation trails that time of year. Those trails tend to be hot and dusty in August, anyway.

Here's a write-up on today's destination, Hidden Lakes.

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

HIDDEN LAKES

Length: 10.5 miles RT from Soldier Creek trailhead

Elevation gain: 2734'

Difficulty: Class C (moderate, all on trail)

The Hidden Lakes are a pair of glacial gems tucked up on a bench above Soldier Basin. Now that they've signed the trail turnoff they're not all that hidden any more, but back in the day you pretty much had to know they were up there to go looking for them. They're not all that obvious until you're almost standing in them.

This hike is quite different from many in the Rubies. For one, it's much lower elevation, meaning that you spend a fair bit of time walking through the dappled sunshine of aspen groves. You walk uphill through a narrow canyon, alongside the boisterous Soldier Creek, until suddenly the canyon opens up into a beautiful mountain basin, with gentle slopes and only a scattering of trees. The grade slacks off considerably and it becomes a very mellow walk. The lack of shade makes this a better hike very early in the morning or at times of the year when it's a bit cooler out. You'll be sharing the area with a lot of hunters in the fall, so if that's not your gig you might want to find another destination.

To get to the trailhead, drive through Lamoille until the pavement ends at a T intersection by the Lamoille Church. Turn left, and then turn right when the road makes another quick T. Stay on this road as it roughly follows the line of foothills at the base of the range. After the road dips to cross Cold Creek, look for a small brown sign at about 10 miles that says "Soldier Canyon" and points to the right. Go through the gate onto a somewhat rougher road (still passable by passenger car) about 6 miles to a small turnaround with an outhouse and a hitching rack. Park here unless you have a high-clearance vehicle and don't much care about your undercarriage.

You'll immediately cross Soldier Creek and then walk up the jeep road for another 3/4 of a mile or so until you reach a USFS kiosk and a gate blocking access by the ATVS that were continually encroaching on the trail. (Thank you, Backcountry Horsemen).

The trail is a bit rocky at first as it climbs through the aspens, gaining elevation at a 13% clip. It smooths out pretty quickly, though, and is downright pleasant walking. The canyon gets narrow and the creek gets closer, until fairly suddenly at about 2.25 miles in the canyon opens up, the grade slacks off a bit, and you leave the aspen forest for a scrub hillside.

For the next 2+ miles, you'll follow the creek as it and the canyon bend around to the right, still gaining elevation but not steeply at all. The plant communities will change as you gain elevation, until you start to see limber pines and skunk cabbage.

You'll pass the turnoff to Ross Creek and the Krenka Creek trailhead at about 3 miles. Those rough trails will get you to places very few people other than hunters go. Good stuff for those with adventure in their souls.

At a little more than four miles, you'll see the first of the tarns that have collectively earned the name Soldier Lakes. There are five of these tarn-sized lakes up here, all of them lovely in their own ways. Soldier Basin itself is fairly treeless and windswept, and very open.

At 4.5 miles you'll see a new-ish sign marking the turnoff to Hidden Lakes. It's pretty obvious which of the two forks gets more traffic - and it's not the fork we're planning on taking today.

The trail to Hidden Lakes pretty immediately overlooks the largest of the Soldier Lakes, and makes its way up a mellow grade on wonderful tundra slope. The tread is very thready but it's impossible to lose your way as it's marked by the most obvious rock cairns in the Rubies. They immediately brought to mind the signal fires of Gondor. If you do manage to lose track of the next cairn, just stop where you are and look around. You'll see it.

Oddly enough, the cairns will dump you onto a beautifully benched trail that contours around the hillside and takes you the rest of the way to the lake. If I had to guess, it looks like somebody started rebuilding the old trail from the lake on down, and ran out of money, oomph or weekends about half-way into the project. At any rate, the trail's great and will get you where you need to go.

You'll come up on the twinned Hidden Lakes right at 5.25 miles.

As at most lakes in the Rubies, there are far more fire rings than necessary, all of which are filled with burnt cans and broken glass. I didn't have a garbage bag with me today... if you head up there, bring one along and pack some of that stuff out of there. If we all take a little none of us will have to take a lot and eventually it'll get cleaned out.

There are tent sites at the south end of the southern lake, if you're up for an overnight. There are cutthroat trout in these lakes, although they had a big winter kill event in 2010-2011. They re-stocked the lake last year with fingerlings... too small to keep. Give them a couple of years to grow up before trying to tempt them into your frying pan. There are lots of brookies in Robinson Lake down the hill, though, so you don't have to go hungry. To get to Robinson, walk back downhill to the main trail, hang a right, walk past (fishless) Soldier Lake a few hundred yards to Robinson, the last (and largest) lake on the bench.

Here's the map. Click on it to make it larger.

One final note: this is a great opportunity to give a shout-out to the Backcountry Horsemen, who have been the ones maintaining the Soldier Creek Trail for years. Without this group of volunteers the trail would be ridiculously overgrown, much more eroded, and a significantly less pleasant place to visit. Thanks, folks, for all of your hard work over the years!

National Trails Day June 2nd

My favorite holiday is on its way!  No, not Christmas, although I'll admit that's how I often feel at the end of the day.

It's National Trails Day, June 2nd at a trail near you!

This year I'll be celebrating National Trails Day at the Elko SnoBowl Ski & Bike Park, five miles north of Elko on North 5th Street.  We'll be working on two projects - one, finishing some benching work on the beginner MTB trail up there, and two (really exciting to me) beginning work on a NEW cross-country trail system.  We'll be building a trail that leaves the SnoBowl parking lot and heads up to the saddle looker's right of the top of the lift.  It'll be designed for two-way bike traffic and will be perfect for hikers and trail runners, too!

If you live in or near Elko, come on out and join us.  We had almost 60 people out there last year... we got a lot of work done, enjoyed a great lunch, and played on the new trails in the afternoon.  If you DON'T live near Elko, then find a Trails Day project near you.  If you love trails, volunteer!

Great Basin Institute's most recent bait-and-switch

I got this e-mail a couple of days ago from a young woman who came to my home town from Switzerland to work for the Great Basin Institute on the Secret-Lamoille Trail project. It is a disturbing - very disturbing - indictment of the Great Basin Institute, the man they've hired to "oversee" the project, and of the local USFS office. This utter incompetence is why GBI and the USFS has blown through most of a half-million dollars RAISED BY THIS COMMUNITY on 3.5 miles of trail that is going to have to be substantially rebuilt. It's nothing more than a gross and ugly bait-and-switch, played on the people who put this project together AND on the well-meaning kids who sign up to work for GBI.

Good God, this pisses me off. It should piss you off, too.

I've changed the author's name, as well as the name of her partner, to protect their privacy.

Hello,

I found your mail adress in blogger.com because I read your articles about the Ruby Mountain Trails. I write you because me and my boyfriend= were part of the GBI workers working this summer to built the Secret Pass Trail and we had a very bad experience!! We really hope that GBI will stop its activities because it´s a very bad organisation.They lied to us about what we were suppose to do during our stay in USA and we paid a lot of money to come to USA from Switzerland!

GBI hires American (american corps workers) but also foreigners. Some foreigners are volunteers (they are not at all paid) others (like [my partner] and me) are interns (paid two times less than the american corps workers).

[My partner] and me came to do an internship in environmental conservation. Our goal was to gain some experience because we just finished our Master in geosciences. What we were suppose to do is described in the attached document. This document, the DS-7002, is part of the J-1 Visa process that explains what the foreigners participating to an internship in the USA are suppose to do in the USA. As you can see, this document contains a plan of what we were suppose to do while we were in Lamoille. This document contains a "contract agreement" part signed by us, the supervisor and the program sponsor. A lawyer explained me that this DS 7002 has the value of a contract.

GBI never admitted that this document has the value of a contract. The organization persisted to say that it is a list of readings and topics to be covered during the internship but if you read it you will see that it's clearly not!

We wrote to Nancy Taylor from the US Forest Department [ed. note - Ruby Mountain Ranger District recreation planner and overall project manager] to explain the situation but she never answered! We really don´t understand why the US Forest Department work with an organisation that doesn´t respect a contract from the US Department of State!!

About the work we did in Lamoille, I totally agree with what you say on your blog! The work done is unprofesional. A lot of the GBI workers hadn´t any motivation (like the interns because we didn´t know that we will do this job!). Some switchbacks were done 3 times instead of doing it well the first time! The result was that we had to cut a lot of trees because of the mistakes mad! The supervisors, team managers, etc. had no idea about environment. When we started the work, we didn´t received any informations about the trail. GBI just explained us how to use tools like a shovel!! I had to ask and ask again to have at least a map of the site and have some informations about the trail (like the historic of the trail, where the trail is going, informations about the environmental assesment, etc.)

We lost a lot of money, time and energy with this experience. We choosed to leave the internship because we were tired of this situation. Now we are still waiting for a full refund of the money that we spend to participate to this internship.

Maybe this story can help you to persuade people to stop the collaboration with GBI, an incompetent organisation that lies to hire its workers.

(signed)

[Name]

Here's what these kids were supposed to be learning, taken from the State Department paperwork granting them a visa to enter this country. Their internship was supposed to be broken into three phases:

Overview:

Interns will see, first hand, how the theories of ecological and habitat restoration are being applied in the field. Participant will be able to apply their knowledge and skills gained while working in the environment in which they are studying.

Phase 1
Week 1: Introduction to Concepts of Ecological Restoration, discussion pertaining to the required research project.
Weeks 2-4: Concepts of Ecological Restoration, Principles of Habitat Restoration, check topic of research project for relevancy.

Phase 2
Week 1: Introduction to Restoration Project Planning.
Weeks 2-6: Restoration Project Design.
Weeks 7-11: Site Analysis and Preparation.
Weeks 12: Introduction to Native Plant Revegetation/Control of Invasive Plant Species.

Phase 3
Weeks 1-11: Monitoring, assessing, and evaluating restoration projects.

As far as I can tell, the only restoration work that needed to happen up there was fixing the butcher job that GBI itself is doing!

Where do I start with how terribly GBI wronged this young woman and her partner?

1. You do NOT abuse volunteers! People sign on to projects like this for an absolute pittance because they want to do great things for the environment, for the forest, for future trail users. Interns sign on for projects like this to further their education! GBI promised these kids a well-rounded season of work learning about environmental restoration, and instead handed them a shovel with NO oversight or guidance and set them to a job they had no desire to do.

2. These young people spent thousands of dollars of their own money to fly half-way around the world to further their education. Most young people don't have a money tree growing in their apartments. They were defrauded of the educational experience they thought they were paying for - wasting not only money, but also time that they could have used to get the experience needed to move into the workforce.

3. My guess is that these two kids were not alone in their experience, based on the absolutely abysmal quality of work I see up there. They had NO guidance, NO supervision, even though GBI's executive director is paying his Reno "buddy" out of the project's funds to provide precisely that. The blind were leading the blind, which can give no thinking person any kind of job satisfaction. The best part, though, is that once they were here it was almost impossible for them to leave! They were trucked out from Reno and bivouacked at the Lamoille USFS Guard Station, with no vehicle other than the ones driven by their crew leaders.

And, on a personal note - I love Lamoille, I love the Rubies, and I love this state. Northeastern Nevada is, to me, paradise, and I'm very, very proud of the beauty, history and hospitality of this place. To know that these young people traveled halfway around the world to get here, and then were so ABUSED... angers me beyond belief. I wish there were some way that I could show them that the rest of us here aren't charlatans, but I can't. They're gone, as are the rest of the kids GBI brought here last summer.

This just can't be allowed to stand...

In my previous post, I suggested that the organizers of the Secret-Lamoille Trail project look to the Nevada Division of Forestry for project labor, since they do a great job for significantly less money than what the project is paying for GBI. One of the commenters on my previous post replied:

NDF is not any better at building trails than USFS or GBI. A community-trained crew would be even worse. I have seen GBI and NDF projects across the state and GBI always has done a much better job and had less environmental impact. NDF is just as expensive as GBI now.

Just about everything in that poster's response was flat-out wrong, but this one I see no point in letting stand.

The Nevada Division of Forestry will hire out ten-man crews, complete with tools, transportation, supervision, their own food and drink, etc. for about $850/day. For projects like this one, they'll do it for half that price, with the other half going towards grant matching. In other words, you get a supervised, equipped, self-contained crew for about $425/day. Since these guys earn the right to do projects like this, they're darned happy to be out there and work their butts off.

Simple cost comparison - $2550 for six work days from adult men, with another $2550 going towards grant matching, vs. $15,000 for six work days from GBI's kids. You do the math.

NDF is local, and they're part of this community. Many of the folks on their crews are locals, too. Opportunities like this benefit the community in myriad ways, as well as getting the trail built for a reasonable cost. The money saved using NDF crews could be and should be used to bring on a professional trail builder who can provide direct, constant, on-the-ground supervision to make sure that NDF is building the trail to standard. And, while he's at it, said professional can train local volunteer crews how to build trail, too. That would give our local community a talent base to maintain this trail down the road, as well as to work on new trails elsewhere in the area.

Win - win - win - win - win.

Here are photos of NDF crews that came out this summer to build trail up at SnoBowl. These guys kick ass in all respects. That project would be going better if we'd had the opportunity to train local trail builders on the Secret-Lamoille Trail Project, as was originally envisioned. Right now we have a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of on-the-ground experience from our volunteers. Just imagine what a group of experienced local trail-building volunteers could accomplish!

Going forward with the Secret-Lamoille Trail project

One of the commenters on my previous post said the following:

This is outrageous and needs to stop. We have many months before Great Basin solicits its workers fornext year. All I can think of is to go to the FS and ask them to supervise this project more carefully. What do you suggest? How. Much further is Great Basin's work funded? Should we start a petition to engage thew FS more, require a cleanup, take the project away from them? Please detail your ideas and suggestions.

In a nutshell: the project's management needs to be immediately replaced by a community-based team like the one that got it going in the first place. This started out as a community project, and was hijacked by people who had nothing to do with getting it off the ground. The hijack needs to stop, and the people who did the hijacking need to be held accountable.

Here's a letter I wrote to the editor of the Elko Daily Free Press that I didn't send in for publication, for a variety of reasons.

Editor:

I hear through the grapevine that the current managers of the Secret-Lamoille Trail Project are nearly out of funds and are looking to the community to help pay for the project. Here are some numbers that you might find interesting:

The Great Basin Institute is doing the trail construction based on an agreement with the US Forest Service. It costs approximately $15,000 for a Great Basin Institute “tour” on the project. Each “tour” is described as six work days, two travel days for a crew of ten college-aged kids, most of whom have little to no trail-building experience. In other words, it is costing the project $250/workday for an inexperienced worker to drive out from Reno and build trail. The best part, though, is that these kids are all Americorps volunteers so very, very little of the money is going to them. I really don’t care what GBI says to justify themselves… we can build this project much, much more cost effectively than what GBI is doing.

The money for this project was raised by members of the Elko community as part of the very hard work that went into getting this project off of the ground. This project was never intended to be a 100% hand-built trail. Quite on the contrary, project organizers spent a tremendous amount of time looking for alternative construction methods and building up a corps of community volunteers to get the work done. Unfortunately, neither the Great Basin Institute nor the then-new recreation planner for the Ruby Mountain Ranger District were interested in pursuing the community’s vision for the project. In the words of the USFS recreation planner last year: “My relationship with GBI is more important than building a cost-effective project.”

We see the result on the hillside. The construction work on the trail is shoddy at best. Much of it will have to be redone. The switchbacks are unsustainable and largely unrideable by the mountain bikes and pack strings the trail is supposed to serve. The money that should have been more than adequate to take the trail from Lamoille Canyon to Talbot Canyon, if the project was managed as it was originally conceived, is gone and the trail is significantly less than half complete. And they’re now coming to us asking for more?

This trail will be a tremendous asset to the Elko community when it’s finished. It’s already seeing a lot of use all year long, and will see more as time goes by. It is very much in the community’s best interest to see this project through. At a minimum, though, the community should insist that the project be managed by people we can trust not to squander our energy, our money, and our volunteer efforts. The management team for the project, as well as the Great Basin Institute, needs to be held accountable and immediately replaced by a community-based team with the entrepreneurial vision to understand what a real community partnership looks like.

GBI was the grantholder on the project, after the Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group decided that there was too much money involved for it to handle. However, just because GBI was the grantholder and fiscal agent for the project did NOT mean that they had to provide all of the labor and all of the oversight for the project. That was never what was intended when Bill and I wrote the grant, and that's where the problem came in.

Originally, our GBI partner was Bill Wolf, a long-time Elko resident and a believer in the strength of this community. He is a good man and was very, very behind the community's vision for the project. Unfortunately, GBI closed the Ely office where Bill was based, and brought all of Bill's projects to Reno for management. So, not only did we lose Bill from the project, but we lost control of the money.

We also lost the USFS recreation planner who started the project with us. The woman who replaced him is a very nice person, extremely well meaning and very much behind the project - but she'd never built a trail before. Not only that, she'd never worked as a USFS recreation person before, never mind managing the recreation programs in three ranger districts! In my opinion, the executive director of GBI used her inexperience and Bill's departure to take control of the project. He hired one of his buddies to "oversee" the construction, and said buddy drives out from Reno every couple of weeks to "oversee" what's going on. That's just about all the supervision these kids are getting. The USFS has had some summer crews out there, too, but they don't have a whole heck of a lot more experience than the GBI kids do. The USFS rec planner is pretty well lost without GBI to get her projects done, because she doesn't know enough to understand the alternatives available to her.

And here we are.

I don't know where we are with the money because I have not been involved with the project since GBI's coup. They didn't want me around, either, for obvious reasons. I made a LOT of noise about where this was all going, and was eventually told by GBI to back off. Since I got no support from the folks at the USFS, I did. My continued involvement at that point would have been useless.

Here's a blog post I did at that time:

So long, and thanks for all the fish

My understanding is that GBI has scrounged up enough money to go for a while next summer, and that's it. However, what they've scrounged, combined with what this community can bring to the table and with some new resources from the state USFS office, should be able to get us a whole lot closer to done with the first segment, anyway.

My suggestion would be this: Immediately get a committee of trail-friendly locals involved in overseeing all aspects of this project: one from the hiking community, one from the equestrian community, one from the mountain bike community. Make sure at least one of those people has significant project management experience. I would suggest Bill Wolf, since he's intimately familiar with both the community, the project, and GBI. Get rid of the "buddy" immediately, and if GBI doesn't want to be the fiscal agent any more, so be it. NNSG or the Great Basin Trails Alliance can assume that role. Bid the project out to the trailbuilding community and bring on an experienced trail boss to manage construction. The labor for the project can come from paid NDF crews, who work a lot more efficiently than GBI crews as well as a LOT less expensively, as well as local volunteers. It should be bid to GBI and other, similar entities to see if they can do it more cost-effectively. I doubt it but you don't know if you don't ask. And by using community volunteers we can get locals trained up in trailbuilding techniques - useful down the road when it comes time to maintain this trail or build new ones.

There are likely other ways of getting this done but we'll never know as long as GBI is controlling the project. Certainly we won't end up with the community buy-in needed for this and other projects down the road. Having a strong, experienced team of community trail builders will help us immensely, not only with projects in the Rubies, but with trailbuilding at the SnoBowl and other possibilities that may present themselves in the future.

Whoop whoop! SnoBowl's officially OPEN for the summer!

It's official - opening day at the (new) SnoBowl Ski & Bike Park was this Saturday, and it'll be open for lift-served mountain biking all summer! Operating hours this first year will be Saturdays, 12N - 4PM.

We tried to keep the opening small so that we could shake things out before things got too busy, and it worked out really well. We had everything from kids with their dad all the way up to some very experienced downhillers out there, and everybody found some good challenges for their skill levels. The feedback from the riders was great - fun trails, and they're ready to spread the word about what we have going up there. It was all VERY good to hear!

The riding this weekend was a lot of fun. It was a major flower show... at one point I felt like I was riding through a flower shop... the lupines smelled that good.



Lots of arrowleaf balsamroot up there, too. I love the juxtaposition of their bright yellows with the lupines.



Here's one of the places that needs some work. This switchback is on the beginner trail, and is one of two switchbacks on that route that need better than beginner bike handling skills to manage. We've got it signed to warn people to slow down - giving beginners a chance to get off and walk - but we need to rebuild this to make it safer for new riders. This won't be a small project as it's in steep terrain. We're working out how to get it done, though, and hope to have it completed before the end of summer.



Dave Todero, our trail designer, is using the Kennedy Ranch backhoe to build terrain park features at the bottom. Folks riding the intermediate trail can finish their run through the park, or can opt to ride straight back down to the lift. One of the really nice parts of this is that the park features are positioned to transition nicely into ski season - won't our snowboarders be happy to see all of these new features come winter time!



Here's the map. SnoBowl sits on a section of land (640 acres) which gives us plenty of room to work with as we develop riding. The downhill trails, obviously, will by and large be routed down the east side, where the skiing happens. Most of the cross-country trails will be built on the back side, although we'll obviously put a trailhead at the base area. The trail grade on the beginner trail averages 9%, so when the lift isn't running it's rideable as an uphill. It's a grunt, but it's rideable. Once we get the XC trails done, that trail will be full time one-way downhill. The intermediate trail averages 16% and is a lot steeper than that in places.



There's plenty more work to be done, of course. Those who are interested in helping get stuff built are invited to show up Saturdays at 9AM for trail work. Those who help build trail on Saturday morning will ride the lift for free that afternoon! Otherwise, lift tickets are a very affordable $15. A bargain at any price!

In case you missed it, the Elko Daily Free Press did a front-page story on the SnoBowl this weekend. Thanks again to them and to the rest of our local media for helping us get the word out. What a great community!

SnoBowl Opens Lift-Served Mountain Biking

Last, and certainly not least - a very, very big shout-out goes to Elko Blacksmith Shop. We'd asked for help all over town getting the bike hooks built that allow us to attach mountain bikes to the chair lift. Folks made some commitments... and then fell through. Somebody suggested at the last minute that we talk to Elko Blacksmith Shop and, even though they were completely booked up, they found a way to get us ten hooks in time for opening day. Seriously - we COULD NOT have opened without their help. We have another 23 hooks coming so that we can have one every three chairs, which is where we need to be with uphill capacity. If you have ANY opportunity to throw some business their way, please do. They will certainly be the first people we call from here on out!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program...

... to share some AWESOME new developments at the Elko SnoBowl... now the SnoBowl Ski & Bike Park.



The SnoBowl hosted its first National Trails Day event June 4th, with a goal of constructing brand new lift-served mountain bike trails at the resort. For the first 20 years of its existence, SnoBowl depended on natural snowfall to generate skiing fun, and largely sat unused for the rest of the year.

Not any more.

SnoBowl mountain manager Roche Bush invited several long-time SnoBowlers to join the somewhat moribund committee that had operated the SnoBowl for the last couple of decades, and this new shot of energy is changing everything up there.

The first change, and it's a big one - SnoBowl will now open on weekends in the summer so that people with mountain bikes can enjoy lift-served riding just outside of town. This will be one of the first - if not THE first - lift-served trail systems in the state of Nevada.

It's exciting, and that excitement is contagious. More than 50 people showed up for National Trails Day, and worked hard all day to get the beginner trail on the ground.



There's still plenty of work to be done. The beginner trail is going to need more work to be sustainable... the intermediate trail still needs some benching... the advanced trails haven't been started yet. But, oh how fun it is to see what's going on up there! Best of all, while SnoBowl's biggest attraction as a ski area is its funkiness and proximity to town, the terrain is apparently extremely suitable for both downhill and cross-country mountain biking. David Todaro, a former professional downhill mountain bike racer, has been working with the SnoBowl Foundation board to develop this project, and he's beyond enthused about the potential here. He's put in trails all over the country and says we have the means of developing something really special in the hills north of town.

Cool to hear.

Because SnoBowl will be one of very few places in the state where mountain bikers can enjoy lift-accessed terrain, Todaro envisions Elko becoming a stop on the mountain biking race circuit once the trail system is established. Pretty cool plan if you ask me. Elko continues to be blessed by the contributions the mines make to the community, and especially by the incredible talent pool of people like David who move here for good mining jobs.

It's funny,.. people who don't use the SnoBowl often dis it because it isn't one of the towering Western resorts that populate this part of the country. I'm thinking those folks don't spend much time at SnoBowl. I've enjoyed powder days there that would surprise you... good people, good skiing, an excellent vibe. And now SnoBowl is getting even better, with year-round fun and even the potential for snowmaking in the works.

Don't look now, but our little town is starting to get awfully fun for non-motorized recreationists of all stripes.

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

A few folks deserve a big hearty THANK YOU for making the 2011 National Trails Day event possible:

- First and foremost, the SnoBowl volunteers for putting in so much time and effort
- Greg & Gina Kronenberg, Albertsons, Maggie Morgan and Kennedy Ranch Custom-Fed Beef for sponsoring lunch
- Event Source for providing the tents, tables and chairs
- The Elko Fire Department, Nevada Division of Forestry and Bureau of Land Management for providing trail-building tools
- Elko's media for helping us get the word out about the project

The old guide trail to Talbot Canyon

Several decades ago, somebody - and I couldn't tell you who - built a steep-ass trail from just short of Pete's Corner in Lamoille Canyon, near the Glacier Overlook, over the top of the ridge to intersect the Talbot Canyon trail. The trail is four miles long, and was built by and for some awfully tough folks - or, at least, folks riding awfully tough horses. It's a 30% grade for much of its length.

That trail was allowed to fade into the grass over the years, and these days it takes some looking, a GPS, and a good imagination to find it. The hunting guides used to keep it cleaned out, but since they have access from the homeowners at the base of Talbot Canyon these days, it doesn't look as if they've done any trail clearing since the mid-1990's. That said, the trail's there, and some friends of mine are working with me to make it easier to find.

There are some good reasons for re-establishing this trail. First and foremost, for skiers, it allows reasonably ready access to some truly marvelous ski terrain. Getting up there otherwise is an interminable bushwhack, but with the trail in place accessing that ridge becomes more realistic. Painful, but realistic.

Second, with construction moving slowly on the Secret-Lamoille trail project, brushing out this old trail will allow access to Talbot Canyon and Verdi Lake more quickly. It's eight miles from Pete's Corner to Verdi Lake on this trail - doable as a day hike or day ride if you're really fit, very reasonable as an overnight if you're less insane.

And, third, once they DO get the Lamoille to Talbot section of the Secret-Lamoille Trail project done, people will have the option of a really nice loop route. This trail isn't close to suitable for bikes, but for everybody else it'd be a nice, if strenuous, trip.

So far, we have it located and brushed out to about where it says "On Ground" on the map. We still have quite a ways to go, obviously. If we can get the trail brushed to the ridgeline before ski season, I'll be really happy.



It's not very likely that the old trail left the road where it shows on the map. This was a horse trail, and the official GPSed route isn't doable by horses in a few spots. It probably took off down canyon a few hundred feet.

Even though it's steep, the trail is worth doing. Some of the views from up there are amazing. Here are Mt. Gilbert and Terminal Cancer couloir from the trail.





It's clear that this route needs a lot more than brushing. Some of the old rock work is findable, as is some of the benching. A lot of it just needs about four people with pulaskis and mcclouds for a couple of weeks.

Breaking ground and blazing trails

I have to say that this entire project has done more to impress me with the citizens of Elko County than I could ever have imagined. Yesterday, we celebrated our first National Trails Day with this project - and even on graduation weekend for Elko and Spring Creek high schools... even with it being about the first decent day we've had all spring... even with all of that, we had more than 40 folks show up to roll up their sleeves and get this trail underway.

Best of all, they had a great time and are going to bring their friends when we do this again. Awesome!

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

We had the official groundbreaking for the project on Friday, and had a nice crowd on hand for the speechifying. We've had some amazing support for this project (check the list of partners over to the right) and it was really great to hear their take on why all of this work has been worthwhile. Gerry Miller from the Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group emceed, with comments from Lou Schack from Barrick, commissioners Sheri Eklund-Brown and Warren Russell, and USFS District Ranger Gar Abbas. After the brief ceremonies, everybody grabbed a shovel and headed to the trail to turn some dirt... the cool part is that most folks stuck around for a while to take a short hike up the route. How fun is that?



Then, yesterday, folks started showing up to roll up their sleeves... what an amazing community celebration! We got about 3 switchbacks worth of trail on the ground, on top of the work the Americorps kids did last week. Boy, will they be surprised at all the new trail that happened while they were gone! They'll be showing up again tomorrow evening... I can't wait to see their faces. ;)

We had all kinds of folks there... kids as young as 9 and as old as 86... fisher folks, horsemen, mountain bikers, hikers. David Ashby, the former USFS recreation planner for this area and one of the key people to get this project off the ground, came down from Burley, Idaho with his family in tow... so cool to see them and to celebrate his part in the project. We had a dozen kids from NYTC, who did a great job and had a blast doing it. A real cross-section of our community.

Best of all, people had a chance to "pay it forward"... we've all been enjoying the trails other folks built all those years ago, now it's our turn to build a trail for people who'll enjoy it 50 years from now.

What a community!

Just got back from Elko and a day full of meetings with folks from the USFS and the Northeastern Nevada Stewardship Group... had a call from Craig Smith, one of the Friends of the Secret-Lamoille Trail who had made some signs to help volunteers find us on our work days.

Craig is the Wells HS shop teacher, and unfortunately for all of us here has decided to leave our lovely climes and take a job near Teton National Park, in Wyoming.  Tough duty.

Before he left, though, he wanted to do his bit for the trail.  I should have known better than to expect anything less than something amazing.  These signs are beautiful and will serve us well for years to come.  Look for them this Saturday as we work on the trail on National Trails Day.

Thanks, Craig, we'll miss you and look forward to having you back for a hike or MTB ride sometime very soon!

While one great volunteer is moving on, a few more are coming to join us. 

Jerry and Shar Williams from the Reno Chapter of Backcountry Horsemen spent their Memorial Day weekend here in Lamoille touring the project.  They're very excited about the opportunities the project presents, and are staunch supporters of the multi-user trail concept. Our kind of people!  They plan on working with us on the trail themselves, and hope to make this a regular project for their Reno BCH chapter - great news!

One of the more interesting aspects of having Jerry involved is that he is an experienced horse packer, and teaches horse packing techniques for BCH.  His insights into what works best for pack strings will be invaluable to us as we move ahead with the project. The fact that horses and bikes will share the trail will make his contributions critical to the trail's success - by pointing out potential problem areas he'll help us keep this trail enjoyable for everyone. 

Welcome to the team, Jerry and Shar!

Pinch me. It's finally becoming real.

What an amazing few days for the Secret-Lamoille Trail Project.

Last week, we got word from both the Nevada Division of Forestry and the Ruby Mountain Hot Shots that they'd be interested in volunteering for the project, using it to shake out their fire crews before the start of the summer fire season.

Man, what an offer. That's a lot of manpower right off the bat, AND it's a great opportunity for them to get some important pre-work training done for their crews. A real win-win.

That meant that we had to move into overdrive to get ready for their arrival. On Thursday and Friday, trail designer Greg Mazu set pinflags for much of the project, marking exactly where the tread would go. Mark Kimbrough from GBI, our new GBI trail boss, was on hand to get his arms around the thing, scoping the route and working with Greg on the final alignment. By Saturday, Greg was up above the snow line, so he marked trees for the fire crews and worked on the final alignment for the Talbot end of the project.

Lots of work, lots of walking, lots of thinking going into a great route.

On Sunday, I went out with biologist Kendra Olcott from JBR Environmental Consultants, along with her husband Jay, to look for migratory birds before the saws arrived. It's a late spring and we didn't see anything, but it was important to check and make sure we weren't destroying any nests while we went through. Kendra and Jay jumped in at the last minute... Rich Weber from JBR had been scheduled for this walk-through, but got stuck in an airport on the other side of the country. Thanks, guys, for being so incredibly cool and helping us out!

And then, it was Monday - and all of a sudden, we had something on the ground.

After seven years of work, the trail is finally under way!

The NDF crews did one hell of a job for us, clearing out brush, scraping a line, limbing and sometimes removing trees to make the clearance necessary for the folks who will use the trail. The trail needs 6' of horizontal clearance and 10' of vertical clearance so that horsemen and pack animals can safely get through. These guys moved steady, moved strong, moved with a smile on their faces. And more than one of them told me they'd like to come back and bring their kids to see the trail they helped build after their stint with NDF.

In the meantime, the Ruby Mountain Hot Shots went blazing by - man, those guys are amazing. They hustled a couple miles in and started working backwards, meeting up with the NDF crews as they worked their way up. Great cooperation and good practice for the fire season. They probably all went back to base when they were done and did a push-up contest or something, followed by an even 500 sit-ups or so. Just to make sure they got a good workout for the day.

With all of this hustle and bustle from the area's wildland fire crews, it was quite the whirlwind day. And yet... when everybody passed on by and the quiet came back, it was there.

The birdsong. And the genesis of a trail.