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| Volunteer | 22.70 Miles |
4,159 AEG |
| | Volunteer | 22.70 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 4,159 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | [Intro from Shawn- Arizona Trail Association volunteers installed AZT gate and bike rollover numbers 85 and 86 (79 on the AZT; 7 on key connector trails) Nov 11 & 12 near Bradshaw Tank, about a mile south of Pine TH on Passage 25. Pine, AZ is an important trail town that welcomes all AZT-users as well as hosting several trail events each year, including the Fire on the Rim bike race. The iconic steel structures are attractive, maintenance-free, easy-to-operate and are now found from Sunnyside Canyon to near Winter Road along the 800 mile AZT]
John, Shawn and Richard had scoped the project out with the Forest Service staff a couple weeks earlier and decided this would require a 2 day project; access to the location of the gate and rollover would be shortest via a more direct off-trail route, back and above the gravel pit, rather than from the end of the trail nearest the Pine TH, not necessarily an easy route, but the shortest and most feasible.
Day 1-A small gathering of the usual suspects met up at the Pine TH at 8AM to haul the gate, the rollover, tools, concrete, water and other supplies to the work site. Roger skillfully navigated the crawler (with brand new beefy treads on it) through the trees, up a 45 degree rock incline, across the brushy rocky terrain, and over some rotted deadfall (see video), while Richard and Joe scrutinized the landscape to avoid any obstacles that could potentially dump the load, and were on hand “just in case” there was a need for damage control. Shawn and I went off to harvest some fence posts, which we cut and hauled over to the work site. After 4 lengthy trips with the crawler, all the supplies were in place and we returned to the Pine TH around 4PM. Here we met up with one of the Pine Trail guys who invited us and tomorrow’s crew to a BBQ the following day at 1PM, if we were finished up with our installation…the guys seemed pretty confident that with the extra crew members joining the next day that we’d be finished up by 1PM, and gratefully accepted the invitation. Joe headed home, Richard, Roger, Shawn and I had dinner at the Pinewood Tavern, then went back to our place for the night.
Day 2 – We started off with a delicious breakfast at the Early Bird before meeting up with the new crew members at the Pine TH at 8:30AM. John, Gordan, Mike and Mike joined Richard, Roger, Shawn and I (Joe would join us later), and we piled into a couple of vehicles and headed over to the work site. The guys all got right to work digging the 4 holes for the gate (no doubt that potential BBQ provided some incentive), switching off on the jackhammers routinely so no two people were stuck suffering the inevitable fatigue that comes with running the machine all day, then moved to the 2 holes for the rollover. While the digging was going on, John and I worked on dismantling the existing cluster of wires, fencing and dilapidated gates that we would be removing once everything else was in place.
With the gate in place and leveled, it was time to mix and pour the concrete, it was past 1PM at this point, the BBQ had escaped us. A quick break for those who had brought their lunch and then the work continued. As we were getting started, along came our first “customer”…a thru-hiker from Maine, I think he said he goes by “Silver.” He offered to help and the guys put him right to work! Roger had started on digging one of the post holes for the new fence, and had our new volunteer grab a shovel and assist with removing the dirt. Once done there, before we let him continue his hike, we gave him a lesson in the art of tarp-mixing the concrete, and then rewarded him with being the first person to walk over the newly installed rollover as we bid him farewell and safe travels.
But no rest for the wicked, the new fence posts were tamped into place, new barbed fence wire was stretched across, an old carsonite removed, the dirt raked level and by 3:30PM installation was finally complete. The crawler was loaded up with equipment for the first trip back to the truck, as the rest of us continued to gather supplies and tend to some tidying up tasks along the trail and surrounding area. Once Roger returned with the crawler the obligatory group photos were taken. The crawler was loaded up one final time and the hard working crew made the trek back to the truck. A group of us finished off the long day with dinner at THAT Brewery, while others needed to get home.
Many thanks to the awesome hard working crew—Gordon H., Joe L., John M., Mike E., Mike S., Richard D., Roger S., and Shawn R. for pulling this all together! The new trail steward for this passage (that’s me!  ) thinks the gate and bike rollover look fantastic!!
Moving the crawler over some obstacles [ youtube video ] |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
She did a great job finding the routes with just enough uphill for a good workout. There was a nice breeze, which became windy as we looped around to the east side, Angela pointed out the infamous Happy Hour Ridge (thankfully, we weren't going up that! 
), the wind died down once we made our way back to the western side of the loop. And fortunately, it was mostly downhill as we made our way back to the parking lot. 
Hikngrl and I met up with a couple of other ladies, and our little group of 4 started out at 6:30 am along the Dreamy Draw Nature Trail, and made our way over to Per Charles #1A where we began our clockwise loop. The other 2 ladies hike this area more often, so they were in the lead, which meant I had to pick up the pace a bit to keep up. Not much of a problem until the climb up to the summit, there are a lot more steps than I remember from 8 years ago, and those slow me down a tad (I blame it on my short legs 
The loop is a mild up and down meander through the washes on mostly flat ground. The tread is well groomed, aside from a short section on the northeast side that is layered with ankle eating rocks (mild exaggeration, but better to be warned than not 
I made multiple attempts but I don't think it worked. (I'll blame this later 
Once inside the park we headed over to the visitor center, where we needed to catch the shuttle to the S. Kaibab TH. We lucked out with a makeshift parking spot, alongside a row of other cars, off the pavement under some trees and jumped aboard the waiting shuttle bus. However, it wasn’t departing anytime soon, as the driver insisted he needed to cram in at least another 20 passengers to this already sardine packed vessel before he could leave, “This bus holds 85 people, and we’ve only got 62 aboard…move all the way to the back, when you’re as far back as you can go, we’re going to make a double row down the middle aisle” 
. Once satisfied that passengers were sufficiently uncomfortable, he closed the doors and proceeded to the S. Kaibab TH, thankfully the first stop. 
After checking the app and Shawn’s GPS, we determined we had missed the trail junction a ways back, we were maybe 0.25 miles too far south? So we bushwhacked over to where we were supposed to be, which was along the rocky 2 track powerline road. This heads west, crosses the highway again and connects up to the paved Tusayan Greenway Trail, for another 7 miles or so.
The trail meanders through the forest sharing some singletrack trail with the Tusayan bike routes, so watch for the signs as some routes are for the bikes only. 
