• Trail Updates

Friends of Pathways has a formal partnership with the USFS to collaborate on design, construction and stewardship of local trails for all users – hike, bike, horse, and ski. We’re committed to providing easy year round access to trails in order to maintain our high quality of life in Jackson Hole.

This week the crew dodged some hail storms while working on the Skyline trail with the Montana Conservation Corps.  The MCC crew finished their 8 day hitch and helped to narrow and improve 1.2 miles of tread on the eastern end of the Skyline ridge.  The youth crew had a big day on the Ski Lake trail clearing 104 drainage features and several large trees between the lake and the ridge.  We also installed 22 more of the new trail signs around Snow King, we will get more out next week and then have several volunteer groups in August who should help us finish the Snow King area trails.  A note about these signs, they are part of a several year project to map and define USFS system trails, and match with the town and county signs on roads and pathways to help people seamlessly navigate from their homes to an adventure in the forest and back safely.  They are all labeled, numbered, and gps’ed for Teton County Search and Rescue to better locate any injured trail users.  That being said, be safe out on the trails this weekend so you don’t need to call our friends at TCSAR.

Signs!  Our new trail signs for the Snow King area trails arrived and we started installing them this week.  They include maps and directions with mileages as well as education messages for good trail etiquette.  Look for them to be installed over the next few weeks!  Crews also cleared Black Canyon, Skyline, West Game, Ferrins, and Hagen this week removing 31 trees that fell in the storm last Sunday night.  Monday evening we had a joint volunteer day with Mountain Bike the Tetons and the Teton Freedom Riders and had 12 volunteers show up to work on the section of Black Canyon from the top of Teton Pass to Mt. Elly.  The youth crew spent a day killing musk thistle on the Shade Monkey trail then closed and rehabbed some short cut trails in the Hagen Highway area.  Crews were able to clear the culvert at Crater Lake that was clogged stopping the water from running up and over the road.  There is also a crew from the Montana Conservation Corps who have been camping and working on the western half of the Skyline trail all week.  They are doing an amazing job and said if anybody wants to bring them cookies over the weekend they wouldn’t turn them down.  See you out on the trails!

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.

Crews continued to get after it this week with 78 trees cleared off of the Wilson Canyon, Ridge, Arrow, Ski Lake, and Phillip’s Pass trails and 132 drainage features cleaned or installed on West Game, Hagen Highway, and Putt Putt.  The pass is close to being open with only the upper reaches of Blacks, Lithium, History, Ski Lake, and Phillip’s Pass still above the snow line.  A few wind drifts are lingering down lower in the shade but are easily passable.  A big thanks to Walt, ChrisP, and the Engine 441 crew for their help with trees this week and to the Youth Trail Crew for all of the drainage work.  We will be moving over to Game Creek next week to fix several muddy messes caused by new seeps this spring.  Hope everyone enjoys the nice weather this weekend!