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What rules do you follow about performing trail maintenance? On several of the hikes I've done recently, I've been tempted to whip out a knife or pocket saw and cut back some of the catclaw and overgrowth over the trail, but I haven't done it yet.

I'm not about to bring a machete with me...yet, but there are some places where I felt the catclaw wanted my shirt more than I did and it would be rather easy to snip off a few branches of the stuff.

Is there a difference between doing this on federal wilderness vs state land? Would you be breaking any laws or do you need a permit? Are there any protected plants in Arizona you shouldn't trim? (Obviously I'm not talking about hacking down a saguaro, just typical shrubbery you would encounter and only the stuff growing over the trail.)

In an ideal world the Forest Service would have all the trails in perfect shape, but it seems as when I get off of the most popular trails that most are overdue for maintenance. On the other hand, hacking away at the vegetation isn't exactly harmonious with leave no trace philosophy.

The beauty of a run in with the catclaw is showing up on Monday morning at work and letting all your co-workers wonder what you did all weekend! Unless they knew you were hiking/backpacking and then they just shake their heads and ask if you did a little off trail adventure.

I've always been one to appreciate discreet and small cairns on some of the more obscure trails I've been on. Of course when I see cairns the size of the Pyramids on trails you could drive a jeep down...that's another matter.

Trishness wrote:The beauty of a run in with the catclaw is showing up on Monday morning at work and letting all your co-workers wonder what you did all weekend!

This fall I met some riders as I was coming down from Chiricahua Peak. One of them asked me if it was very brushy. I said "not too bad, except maybe on the back side of Little Baldy yesterday", but I was thinking he's either clairvoyant, or he'd been up there before. Then I looked down at my lower arms. They were a lot more ripped up than I realized.

cathymocha wrote:I really appreciate knowing the difference. Am going to look in the flora section to see what catclaw looks like.
Thanks again.

Wait-a-minute Bush
Mimosa biuncifera

Ah, very good! But in winter it has no leaves! :twisted:

In response to azbackpackr's reply: When hiking in the winter head into the green bushes instead of the one with out leaves and avoid the catclaws then. For some reason the ones that are still green in the winter don't have spines. At least at the Camp Verde-Payson elevations.

I've heard your only supposed to clip catclaw in a certain way. If the clipping is done improperly then when it grows back it's more bushy. Any truth to this? If so can someone inform me how to trim this properly.

I marked Superstition Peak 5057. Go ahead and knock that one over if you want, after you make the trip up.

http://www.hikearizona.com/phoZOOM.php?ZIP=39447

In response to hikeaz's reply:

Wow! This makes catclaw quite clear to me, in all its grizzled danger.

I appreciate the responses as this was (for some unknown reason) a mystery to me.

A FS employee told me that during fires the wilderness rules are often suspended and they get crews in to "fight" the fire in the form of some frantic power tool use on need trail maintenance. I question this because I have seldom seen chain saw evidence in a wilderness. Maybe they are careful about that.

From my sister who is dispatch for fires...


If there are wilderness rules, they may not use any motorized tools period. No quads, no cars and no chainsaws. No gasoline. So they scrape the ground with hand tools and they cut trees with big buck saws, like you see in old time logging photos. There is a tendency to use let it burn tactics as much as possible and wait for the fire to come out of the wilderness. More than likely that is the case, occasionally they will have to do some "herding" of the fire and this is where hand tools come in. No pumps are allowed either as they use gas, so they have to drop water bags from Helicopters to use "blivets". They can't use pingpong balls, or any fuel torches to backfire either. It makes fighting fires in the wilderness really hard. They have to use water only from fire fighting planes and helicopters, sometimes foam is used, this year they may use a new gell.

The only time these rules can be bent, is when there is an imminent threat to life or property, such as when the Cave Creek Fire was burning, they were allowed to use retardant out of the planes, because of the threat to communities in its way....and there was some useage of dozers to construct lines.

Stiller wrote:I marked Superstition Peak 5057. Go ahead and knock that one over if you want, after you make the trip up.

http://www.hikearizona.com/phoZOOM.php?ZIP=39447

Great! Now Superstition Peak is elevation 5057 1/2.


OMG, the USGS left a trace.