November 10-12, 2017

Over Veteran’s Day weekend, the Arizona Backpacking Club and other volunteers were supported by the M&F Jeepers in their maintenance of Passage 17a near Superior. The jeep club donates their time, gas and rubber to transport food, water and tools to the volunteers, who hiked the 9 trail miles in to basecamp. The jeep group also stocked 50 gallons of water the bear box at the Forest Road 4 junction.

The trail crew worked to clear 4.5 trail miles of the overgrowth of catclaw and other intrusive plants that thrived after the summer’s rains. Each year, the ABC grubs back as much as they can and trims what they cannot to make sure that the entire segment is clear of plants that will cut, poke or harm the legs and arms of hikers, bikers and equestrians. They also managed to clean out a number of the drains installed in prior years as well as create a few more. It may take one more event to solve some of the larger tread issues identified by the crew — if you’re interested in getting involved in remote area maintenance, contact the ATA at volunteer@aztrail.org.