ATA Trail Director Neil Stitzer said the group waited due to restrictions on disturbing the yellow-billed cuckoos’ mating season that ended Sept. 30.

The Arizona Trail spans 800 miles from the Utah state line to the U.S.-Mexico border, with 700 miles of non-motorized single-track trail open to pedestrians, bikers and horse riding. The single-track is a 2- to 3-foot wide path.

Stitzer said constructing trails varies in costs; they generally budget $20,000 to $30,000 per mile. The 10.7 miles for Passage 5 of the Arizona Trail going through the Santa Rita Mountains could run $214,000 to $321,000 once completed.

He said the ATA is reliant on business partnerships, donations, membership and federal and state funding for constructing trails. The ATA also uses volunteers to help get a new trail across the finish line after the contractor cuts it with equipment.

“Then we’re working with Arizona Conservation Corps, and they have a crew that’s been out there for several months,” Stitzer said. “They’re basically following behind the machine contractor and hand finishing. No matter how neat you try to be with machines, they’re a little bit messy and so you always have to come back in with a crew and hand tools.”

He said they also have a volunteer program doing events, with trail skills and veteran programs to also assist with trails. Stitzer said they also partner with other trail organizations that might be in a new construction area to see if they have volunteers.

Improved trail

The Passage 5 trail is accessible to local trail users on both sides of the mountain range.

“If you were to head from Madera Canyon, take Box Canyon all the way through to Highway 83, then that would be a potential access point,” he said.

The Passage 5 portion of the Arizona Trail was a patchwork of motorized dirt roads and trails going through the eastern side of the Santa Ritas. Stitzer said the move to have all non-motorized single-track trails will keep users safer.

“That area is also popular among recreational and illegal target shooting,” he said. “So that’s a consideration.”

Stitzer said the ATA’s goal is to add more single-track trails to the Arizona Trail, saying there used to be more dirt and paved roads in the past. He said the goal is also to get people more intimate with nature and the outdoors without sharing routes with motorized vehicles.

Another ATA goal is to make trails sustainable, with less need for regular maintenance.

Stitzer said the Passage 5 trail meets that goal by reducing trail grades and following natural contours to limit rapid erosion. He said that is ATA’s standard for all new single-track construction projects.

“That also just goes back to the user experience,” Stitzer said. “Folks are going to like to walk on a nice, relatively smooth trail as opposed to a steep, rocky, loose dirt road.”

The Santa Ritas is also home to potential mining sites.

Stitzer said they haven’t come across issues with the new trail having possible future disruption from Hudbay’s Copper World or Rosemont mines. Copper World is on the western side of the mountains and Rosemont is on the eastern side, with Hudbay moving forward with Copper World at this time and not Rosemont.

“It could be a number of decades away,” Stitzer said. “In the future, we might have to consider additional reroutes to avoid that, but not in the near term. But that’s something that we at the ATA have to be flexible with, whether it’s mining impacts or other infrastructure, such as high-voltage transmission lines or solar projects or whatever it might be.”

Stitzer, a Tucson resident who is also a regular trail user, said he was glad to have the Nogales Ranger District’s cooperation in making Passage 5’s new construction finally come to fruition.

“This project has been in the works for years, and we’re really grateful for all of our supporters and land manager that we work with to make this possible,” Stitzer said. “It’s just one more exciting step to increase the percentage of single-track trails that make up the Arizona Trail.”