Big week on the trails with lots of folks out enjoying the holiday weekend.  The crew spent Monday  prepping for the Montana Conservation Corp crew which gets here next week to work on the center section of the Skyline trail.  This meant moving twelve – 40 pound “cubies” of water up 1.5 miles up to the Coors Light saddle (the mid way saddle on the western climb of Skyline, named for the discarded beverage of choice left behind at an old hunting camp we found there).  A big thanks to Engine 441 from the USFS for helping with this.  We then worked the trail from the Cache Game divide down to the bridge on Cache Creek, fixing tread, rock raking, and improving water bars.  We also added big rocks to the section of the Cache Trail where the river was washing out.  We saw ~70 bikers, hikers, and runners on the Skyline, Cache, and Game trails.  The crew also finished the reroute in Game Creek around 3 seeps and rehabbed the muddy mess.  The Operation Purple military group from Teton Science School came and helped at Wildlife Lane on Thursday.  46 hard working volunteers built a short reroute to bring the Linda’s and Wildlife Lane trails to 1 junction point on the KC trail.  They also rehabbed the old trails and opened up the line of sight at the junction.  We also hosted another group from TSS that helped us to close and rehab an old alternate trail in the Sink or Swim area that was unsustainable.  The Youth Crew then moved into Tank Top Thursday and prepped the slab for the new bike locker storage at Stilson.  All in all a fun week with great help from volunteers.  If you would like the opportunity to volunteer come out Monday from 4-8 to the joint volunteer day with MBT and TFR on the Black Canyon trail from Teton Pass to Mount Elly.

All the trails on Snow King, Teton Pass, and Munger are open including Skyline!  Crews had a busy week doing maintenance on turnpikes on the History Trail and removing a 60 inch diameter Douglas Fir that had fallen over the winter.  Then they worked with a volunteer groups from Teton Science School to remove invasive species in Game Creek including Musk Thistle and Houndstongue.  Crews also worked on a reroute around several seeps on the Game Creek singletrack.  We had a chance to work with the USFS River Rangers to make an evac trail near the 3 Oar Deal rapid and brush cut the overgrown first mile of Cabin Creek.  Finally we finished of the week by clearing 62 trees off of the Skyline Trail which is now open!  The wildflowers are beautiful up there right now so hopefully you get a chance to go for a hike or a ride up there this holiday weekend.

Teton Pass is melting out slowly but surely.  Most of the south side trails are in good shape except for upper Blacks, Lithium, and History trail which remain in the snow zone.  The north side trails have patchy snow but are passable.  Ski Lake has intermittent snow up to the Phillip’s Pass junction and the Arrow, Snotel, Ridge loop has been cleared of trees and the trail is ~50% free of snow.  Good for people on foot but not so much for bikes or horses.  The BPA road however is almost entirely free of snow and lets you connect to the lower Ridge Trail which is cleared and snow free.  Snow King and the Munger Mountain trails are all in good shape and crews addressed many of the water problems from last weeks run off.  There were a few new trees down from the storms last week so if you see any blocking the trails let us know and we’ll get them cleared for you!

The theme of the spring is trees down on the trails.  This week the crews cleared 22 trees off of Hagen and Putt Putt, 16 trees off of Crater and Lower History, and a whopping 91 trees off of Ferrins, Wilson Canyon, and West Game.  I would suggest that as the outing for the weekend, the burn section is really interesting with all of the trees blown over in the same direction.  The upper sections of Cache and Game are still holding snow and have a few wet spots and trees left to clear.  Old Pass Road is also open thanks to Team Jackson Hole, it is worth a trip to the top to see the 6 foot banks of snow.  The rest of Teton Pass is slowly melting out and trails can be accessed as out and backs from the lower trailheads.  If you notice down trees or other trail problems tag them in social media with #jhtrails and we will get out to fix the problem asap!

Trails are still slowly melting out with lower Cache Creek and Sink or Swim and below being your best bet for the weekend with the Hagen side still covered in patchy snow and mud.  The crew found some carnage this week with a waterfall flowing down the steep section of Wilson Canyon and ~40 trees down on the upper part of Ferrins.  The full USFS and FOP crew is on starting Monday and will be clearing the high number of downed trees resulting from the heavy snow and ice load and high winds this winter.  We will aim to get Munger and some of the lower trails on Teton Pass cleared early next week!