Trail Skills Institute – Mormon Lake

September 10, 2017 Participants met under the scenic pines of the Mormon Lake passage for classroom and hands-on learning time for Modules 1&2 of the ATA Trail Skills Institute. 10 volunteers were joined by instructors Mark Loseth and Matt Roberts of ACE in learning the basics of trail corridor maintenance and drainage. The class covered terminology, slope recommendations and vegetation […]

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Passage 4 & 5 – Temporal Gulch & Santa Rita Mountains

September 9, 2017 The REI “Force of Nature” event brought 23 female volunteers out to help address issues with drainage and erosion issues immediately north and south of the Apache Spring Trailhead. The crew built 9 wide drains and debermed the trail, repaired 3 switchback turns including adding drainage above, below, and on the inslope to protect the turns. They […]

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Volunteer Vacation – Happy Jack

October 1-7, 2017 Fourteen volunteers traveled from all over the United States to volunteer to participate in the American Hiking Society and ATA’s Volunteer Vacation. The AHS program matches trail volunteers with a wide variety of trail volunteer opportunities throughout the US and beyond. Many of these volunteers had never visited Arizona before, and most of them had not even […]

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Passage 18 – Reavis Canyon

September 6, 2017 The USFS Globe Ranger District has long been a strong supporter of the AZT and the ATA. Through the cooperative effort between the District and the ATA, all AZT gates on the district are now the iconic super gates, the last one being, understandably, the most remote. Volunteers replaced the gate on Montana Mountain, located just south […]

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Passage 28 – Happy Jack

June 24, 2017 The third installment of the 2017 Trail Skills Institute training took place near Happy Jack. The one day trail assessment and maintenance training took place on a section of single track trail that varies between beautiful side hill design, old forest roads and some short but eroded fall line sections. The variance between trail conditions provided an […]

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Steward Conference – Mormon Lake

July 22-23, 2017 Twenty three AZT Segment Stewards attended the training and celebration at the Arizona Nordic Village outside of Flagstaff. Thanks to the Babbitt Ranches for hosting the event! Jim McFadden discussed strategies for promoting the Arizona Trail including recruiting business partners with his events in Flagstaff. We also covered the ATA Sign and Gate Inventory and how stewards […]

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Passage 27 – Blue Ridge

June 10-11, 2017 This work event involved a part of the trail that descends a hill above Blue Ridge Campground that had a lot of erosion due to rain runoff over the years. The group was able to stay in a loop of the Moqui Group Campground. Twenty volunteers worked on Saturday building drains to channel water off the side […]

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Passage 27 – Blue Ridge

June 10-11, 2017 This work event involved a part of the trail that descends a hill above Blue Ridge Campground that had a lot of erosion due to rain runoff over the years. The group was able to stay in a loop of the Moqui Group Campground. Twenty volunteers worked on Saturday building drains to channel water off the side […]

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Passage 28 – Happy Jack

June 7, 2017 If you’d been traveling the AZT’s Ponderosa country on Passage 28 on June 7th, you might have been lucky enough to come upon a marvelous exhibition of girl power. Fifteen members of the Linda Vista Young Women’s group spent part of their day creating drains and repairing tread on the Happy Jack passage near Moqui Campground. It […]

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Passage 40 – Kaibab Plateau South

June 1-5, 2017 Thanks to an extraordinary effort on the part of AZT volunteers, the Forest Service, and AZT stewards, the entire Arizona Trail north of the Grand Canyon from the National Park boundary to Route 89A has been cleared of deadfall! Thanks for all the hard work and long miles driven to Lee Allen, Roger Smith, David Rabb, Dan […]

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Passage 26 – Highline

June 1, 2017 Scout Troop 829 from Queen Creek hiked the Highline and included daily activities along the way. They worked on badges and this was a service project. Chris from Payson RD connected them with the ATA and it came together. After hiking over 9 miles, the scouts had a short rest while the Toyota underwent the third flat […]

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Passage 26 – Highline

May 24, 2017 Work on the new Colonel Devin trail continued with removal of the large logs. These were too big or numerous to be handled on the trail construction project a few weeks ago, so some diehards returned with saws and pry bars to remove them. The FS fellows showed up for a little chain saw work on a […]

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Passage 26 – Highline

May 6-8, 2017 A key milestone for ATA through-hikers is the climb up the Mogollon Rim, 18 miles east of the Pine TH. After contouring below the towering cliffs of the rim the trail makes a sharp turn to the north, and quickly ascends the rim. Unfortunately, it follows a utility corridor for most of the climb. The ATA recently […]

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Passage 23 – Mazatzal Divide

May 4-7, 2017 This 4-day work event installed 7 new wilderness signs on segment 23c from the Barnhardt Trail junction with the Divide Trail and The Park, 7.7 miles north. The 3-man crew met at the Barnhardt TH on the evening of May 4th to hand-off 63 lbs of signs, a 15 lb. digging bar and a 5 lb. crosscut […]

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Passage 11 – Santa Catalina Mountains

April 28-29, 2017 We had our annual maintenance event on Passage 11b (Wilderness of Rocks) on 4/28 and 4/29. We had scouted out 37 deadfalls across the trail beyond what we had cleared out on April 8th. Of those, 15 were on the western end of the passage between Romero Pass and the Wilderness of Rocks trail junction. This is […]

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Passage 18 – Reavis Canyon

April 22, 2017 For April 22, 2017 I had 3 hearty volunteers. Two were my regulars and I had one new to the crew. We hiked 2.5 miles in Reavis Canyon heading north. Once we reached the location that I pre-marked we got to work. Current condition was hikers, bikers, and equestrians were having to walk up in a drain […]

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Passage 16 – Gila River Canyons

April 18, 2017 The gate crusade continued today as number 44 was installed at mile 6.25 of the passage on a bench overlooking the Gila River. BLM had delivered the gate and redi-mix a couple weeks previous; today – aided by the mini-excavator and operator Rob B. – the crew installed the heavy steel gate. During the few hours on […]

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Passage 24 – Red Hills

April 13-14, 2017 This 2-day backpacking work event was phase 2 of 2 to install 6 new wilderness signs and 4 new posts on the Red Hills passage. The 2-man crew hiked 8.5 miles from the City Creek trailhead to the previously cached signs, hardware and tools. This gear was then moved 2.5 miles north to Brush Spring. After installing […]

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Passage 19 – Superstition Wilderness

April 8-9, 2017 Our weekend work event started at Campaign TH hiking up to Two Bar Ridge Trail to Walnut Spring. Between Two Bar Ridge and Walnut Spring we built a few necessary drains and cleaned out Walnut Spring from some grasses encroaching and removed some sediment in the bottom to allow it to hold a greater amount of water, […]

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Passage 23 – Mazatzal Divide

March 30-31, 2017 A total of 89 trees were removed from the trail between northbound passage 23 mile 5.0 and Bear Spring over the course of this 2-day, 20 mile round trip backpacking work event. The work event was especially challenging due to a high winds and a low temperature of 27 degrees overnight; not to mention the snow flurries […]

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Passage 16 – Gila River Canyons

March 28, 2017 The “Project of Many Moving Parts” installed AZT gates number 42 and 43 in the riparian area just north of the railroad trestle, below the AZT completion monument. BLM helped fund machine maintenance over the passage, now 5-6 six years since completion. An assessment in March of 2016 showed where the trail needed tweaking and the machine […]

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Passage 23 – Mazatzal Divide

March 24-25, 2017 The above average moisture in the Mazatzal Mountains this winter has caused many dead trees in previously burned areas to fall across the Mazatzal Divide trail. Over the course of this 2-day backpacking work event, a total of 71 trees were removed from the trail between the Mount Peeley trailhead and northbound passage mile 5.0. Longtime volunteer […]

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Passage 24 – Red Hills

March 18-20, 2017 This work event was phase 1 of 2 to replace and/or install 6 new wilderness signs and 4 new posts on the Red Hills passage. The trip started earlier in the week by packing 43 lbs. of signs/bolts and a 27 lb. slide hammer (a manual jackhammer) 5.9 miles up the Mazatzal Divide trail from the City […]

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Passage 25 – Whiterock Mesa

March 15, 2017 ATA’s effort to remove the trail from roads has quite the target in Passage 25. Five-and-a-half miles of the passage fall on two-track, county road and powerline road. It has long been a “someday” project to cut across Rock Creek and shorten the trail as well as remove it from the roads; at a recent meeting the […]

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Passage 13 – Oracle

March 15, 2017 Twenty members of the SaddleBrooke Hiking Club completed significant trail maintenance on the Oracle Passage of the Arizona Trail on March 15. Catclaw and dead tree branches were removed from the trail. The trail was widened next to natural drainages and water barriers were developed to prevent trail erosion. After 3 hours of satisfying work our SaddleBrooke […]

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