A special thank you to all who participated in our inaugural volunteer event, particularly our Executive Officers for leading by example!

Michael Humphrey — Vice President
Tom Simonick — Treasurer
Li Li
Neil Dennis
Martha Milner
Carol Bryant
Rodney Baba — Volunteer Coordinator

On May 14, seven Arizona Trailblazers met with Austin Gebers from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests Black Mesa Ranger District and another volunteer from the Pinetop District for the inaugural AZ Trailblazers Volunteer Event.

The AZT volunteers partnered with the Black Mesa Ranger District to clean up the section of the General Crook Trail #140 between Rim Top Trailhead and Carr Lake Trailhead. We cleaned up the trail, removing trash and debris, moved small obstructions (trees, rocks) from the trail, replaced missing and damaged trail markers and put the blaze in Trailblazers. The tread from the Woods Canyon Lake Road (FR105) to the Rim Top Trailhead had disappeared (probably due to snowfall and neglect). We assisted Austin in blazing a new tread for the conservation crew to clear.

Our volunteer crew rendezvoused at the Rim Top Trailhead, piled into 2 vehicles, and drove about 5 miles up the Rim Road (FR300) to the Carr Lake Trailhead.

We distributed gloves, trash bags, tools, and trail markers.

We crossed the road and picked up the trail heading east. The route was well marked (conservation crew worked on this section last year), but still needed work.

We spent time replacing trail markers in both directions. We also removed dead branches obstructing the view from one marker to the next.

We traveled SE crossing several roads that honeycomb the area picking up trash and debris along the way.

We crossed the Woods Canyon Lake access road (FR 105) at about the halfway point before turning ESE. At this point the tread disappeared, either washed away or covered with new growth.

We worked with Austin to find the best path (ridges along naturally occurring ditches, berms around water sinks, paths around downed trees) marking with plastic ribbons, trail markers and flags.

Along the way, we found an original marker placed by General Crook’s soldiers. The “V” stands for Verde and the 70 is a mile marker.

There were two conservation areas preserving stands of Aspen straddling the old tread and we marked a new path circumventing both areas. Just past the conservation areas, the trail intersects the old rim road, we turned east and traveled a short distance to the Rim Top Trailhead.

The drivers rode back to the Carr Lake Trailhead to retrieve the cars and return to the Rim Top Trailhead to pick up the rest of the hikers.

We rewarded ourselves with a well-earned lunch at Macky’s Grill in Payson.