PINE VALLEY — The need for trails has historically been about finding the quickest way between two points. The U.S Forest Service began building trails in the 1890s, when national forests were first set aside as forest reserves, according to Forest History Society Special Projects author Nancy C. Nye.
Unlike today, the trails then were not for scenic walks but were built primarily for communication and fire fighting activities. Many of the trails on Pine Valley Mountain date as far back as pre-settlement times, said Pine Valley District Ranger Joe Rechsteiner.
Native Americans used the trails first. When European pioneers traveled to the west, they created more. The Old Spanish Trail that travels throughout several western states is one of these. Trappers and hunters used the trails for subsistence purposes.
Later, the ranching community utilized the trails, many of which are still used today for moving cattle, Rechsteiner said. The Summit Trail system on Pine Valley Mountain is an example of one of these.
Many of the front range grazing allotments on the mountain are no longer used, such as Oak Grove and the area around New Harmony. The Paradise Trail, at Pinto Springs, was an old road also used by the ranching community.
The Mill Canyon Trail is another that bears remnants of its history with old lumber still located in the area. A forest fire in 2021 exposed some of the leftovers of these mills, Rechsteiner noted.
Many of these trails were not created for long-term sustainability. Based on Forest Service annual reports, it was not until the mid-1930s that trails were considered to have recreational value, particularly for their scenic attributes.
The Report of the Forester in 1933 is the first annual report to include hiking as an activity, Nye states.
Between 1950 and 1960, public enthusiasm for hiking continued to grow. This demand for public recreation outgrew the ability of federal, state and local governments to keep up, according to Nye. During the 1970s, recreational use of national forest trails increased even more as the popularity of hiking grew nationwide.
By 1976, the Forest Service was allocating $5.7 million on trail maintenance and more than $3 million to trail construction each year. Locally, more trails on the Forest Service’s Dixie National Forest in Southern Utah were also being discovered.
Pine Valley Ranger District
Pine Valley Ranger District is one of four districts encompassing the Dixie National Forest. The other three districts are: Cedar City, Powell and Escalante.
Dixie National Forest contains nearly 2 million acres and stretches 170 miles across Southern Utah. It straddles the divide between the Great Basin Range and the Colorado River. Elevations on the forest range from 2,800 to 11,322 feet at Blue Bell Knoll on Boulder Mountain, according to the forest service website.
In 1984, the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness was designated and approximately 50,000 acres of the Pine Valley Mountain became part of the Wilderness Preservation System. That system now contains more than 100 million acres of wilderness throughout the 50 states, according to author Bridget McColville’s book, ‘Loving the Laccolith: A Hiking Guide to Pine Valley Mountain.’ Maintaining the trails over the years has been a challenge with various tools being used.
“It’s always a game of catching up through the winter. The first trail we started on (summer of 2023) was the Forsyth (Canyon) Trail trying to get that opened up because it is one of the most highly used trails,” Forestry Technician Giovanni Lopez said.
The trail crew has also concentrated on getting the Whipple Valley Trail opened and maintained for summer use.
“Joey and I came here with little to no information on what was maintained previously,” Lopez said, noting that both he and Vanstaveren are full-time Forest Service employees.
Vanstaveren and Lopez have relied heavily on a priority list created by previous trail supervisors to determine which trails need to be prioritized. The Forsyth and Whipple Trails are just two that are part of that list.
From there, Vanstaveren and Lopez look at what other trail work has been done. They also work on The Water Canyon Trail near Grass Valley which connects to the Whipple Trail.
There was a period of eight to 10 years where not much trail work was getting done. That is, until the previous trail supervisor came to the Pine Valley Ranger District in 2021, Vanstaveren said. Lopez and Vanstaveren believe that the previous trail supervisor had a good trail crew going and hope they have continued that legacy.
“We just want to open up the trail so people can get up there,” Vanstaveren said.
Lopez said the entire crew looks at where water sources are located when preparing to take crew members onto Pine Valley Mountain.
“We look at where a good camp is located and how many days will be needed and how many crew members are needed for a trail maintenance project,” he said.
The trail crew supervisors also look at where the most downfall of trees has occurred on Pine Valley Mountain during the winter months. They can then decide whether to bring horse and mule stock onto the mountain.
Based on these findings, Lopez and Vanstaveren plan their overnight or multiple-night expedition on the mountain complete with tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, dehydrated meals and other food and water filtration systems.
For wilderness trail work, trail crews use non-mechanized tools such as cross cut saws. They are usually carried by two crew members on foot or carried with backpack straps. They also use pulaskis, axes, shovels, hoes, pruners (loppers) and foldable hand saws with 24-inch blades that are a lot quicker to use on smaller trees, Vanstaveren said.
A downed aspen tree that had been alive can be cut through quicker than a long-dead aspen tree. Larger trees, with a 43-inch diameter, can take up to 2.5 hours to saw through.
On the Forsyth to Summit Trail — a distance of 3.5 to 4 miles — it takes about two days for the trail crew to clear down trees and bushes. When a trail section has been completed, Lopez said “it’s really rewarding, knowing it is making a difference but it is also getting used and having people enjoy it.”
While the crews do their best to care for the trails on Pine Valley Mountain, others have not been maintained for eight years, which has a lot to do with limited Forest Service resources, said Rechsteiner.
Partnerships and grants
The agency tries to match their resources through grants and partners, including the Recreational Trails Program and the Utah Outdoor Recreation Grant.
“Volunteers are huge in the trail maintenance program,” adds Rechsteiner.
Some of the volunteers include Backcountry Horsemen of America, local trail organizations, the Dedicated Hunter Program and several local youth groups.
A key volunteer on Pine Valley Mountain is a 63-year-old St. George resident who maintains the Browns Point Trail from the Lion’s Lodge to the Summit Trail. Lopez said the energetic volunteer was up on the Browns Point Trail about 20 times during the summer of 2023, helping to maintain the trail.
While no trail maintenance work has been done on the south side of Pine Valley Mountain in recent years, Vanstaveren said he went out with one summer intern and got trail work done about three-quarters of the way up the Blake and Gubler Trails, located on the western flank of Pine Valley Mountain.
Meanwhile, a 2018 fire on the Mill Flat Trail resulted in a lot of regeneration of tree growth and there have been a lot of dams created by falling logs, all of which create challenges. The Pine Valley Ranger District Trail Crew are hoping to reopen that trail by the summer of 2024.
“There are a lot of trail users out there, and we have seen a lot of evidence of people cutting brush back, but [they] are not doing it properly,” Lopez said.
Their main focus is to open up the wilderness trails as much as they can, he added. Currently, they are concentrating on deferred trail work. Additionally, some dedicated hunters working through the State Division of Wildlife Resources are maintaining the Anderson Valley and Comanche trails.
Summer interns
In addition to Vanstaveren and Lopez on the Pine Valley Ranger District trail maintenance crew, the district trains interns each summer from Southern Utah University through the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative Program.
This program gives the students an opportunity to gain experience working on natural resource projects with land management agencies.
“We get a lot of our crews through there,” Rechsteiner said.
Vanstaveren said the Pine Valley Heritage Center is used as a work center by the trail maintenance crew from mid-May through September of each year.
Prior to that, Vanstaveren and Lopez focus on field training, gathering information about the area and getting their tools ready for the summer season. They normally work four, 10-hour shifts, but when working on the mountain in June and July, the trail crew will do 8-day work shifts.
Whipple Valley and Reservoir Canyon have been popular campsites for work crews because of availability of water sources. Lopez said the district has enough gear for one horse packer and one assistant horse packer. The rest of the crew walks in with day packs because the camping gear and tools are carried by horses and mules.
Lopez said the trail crew begins each day at 7 a.m. split into two saw teams of three each. Each team carries a crosscut saw, a digging pool and loppers.
During the summer of 2023, the trail crew maintained 38 miles of trails and cut over 540 trees in the wilderness area, along with doing deferred maintenance on 300 trail water drainage features. To prepare for any medical emergencies, the trail crew carries a first aid kit and Vanstaveren is a certified first responder.
The trail crew also sends communications to the Forest Service dispatch center in Cedar City. Vanstaveren said the trail crew check in and out with a backcountry communication plan that includes an itinerary and where their camp will be.
They have two-way radios and use a Garmin spot device, which works like a backcountry beacon that can be linked to the Ranger District offices in St. George.
When Pine Valley is covered in snow, Vanstaveren said trail crews work on lower elevation trails.
“It is all weather dependent,” he said. “Work crews are routinely rotated on projects to lower the risk of repetitive type injuries.”
Lopez said the trail crew goes on a three to four year rotation where they do maintenance every year on trails such as the Forsyth Trail. But when they complete maintenance on Mill Creek or Water Canyon trail, they won’t have to go back every year.
“It is a matter of walking a trail to see if trail maintenance is needed to gauge what needs to be placed on the priority work list,” Lopez said.
“Hopefully, with our internships we are getting more permanent seasonals here. And I’m trying to work on a roster of volunteers, but also have internships [available], to get better data on what our needs are. Our goal is to open most of our trails next year (2024).”
During the summer of 2023, in addition to the student interns working in Pine Valley, the forest service hired one permanent and four seasonal employees to work trail maintenance, according to former Acting Pine Valley District Ranger Larry Velarde.
To better train their trail maintenance staff, Velarde said the Utah national forest supervisory staff of the intermountain region conducted crosscut saw training during the summer of 2023, as it did in 2022.
“We want to put more people on the ground,” he said, who are involved in trail maintenance.
Spring Hollow mountain bike trail
The Pine Valley Ranger District also obtains working groups from the American Conservation Experience. These groups in the future will be working with the Forest Service on development of the new Spring Hollow mountain bike trail. The trail is 50 miles long and will eventually reach north into Grass Valley.
Development of the bike trail came about because of a need identified by the mountain biking community for a higher elevation trail that would be cooler in the summer. The cyclists also wanted more opportunities for downhill trail systems.
The 50-mile trail will include a cross country loop that would provide for high school cross country mountain biking racing events, said Vanstaveren. There will also be some green, intermediate trails and more difficult trails. As of Dec. 2023, 4.7 miles are finished.
During phase two of the project, the Forest Service plans to build another 14 miles of bicycle trails. There will be four phases of the construction project overall, Rechsteiner said.
Vanstaveren said the Spring Hollow Trail is specifically built for mountain bike use. E-bikes, which are considered motorized vehicles, are prohibited from use on Forest Service mountain bike trails. He said Forest Service trails are not designed for the high rate of speed that e-bikes can reach, and that can be a potentially dangerous conflict with hikers.
The Pine Valley Ranger District also maintains many all-terrain vehicle trails as well as non-motorized trails, according to Rechsteiner.
Forest Service all-terrain trails
Lopez said motorized trails on Forest Service land in Washington County are mostly located near Enterprise. They include the Cave, Bull Valley, North Hills and the Ox Valley ATV trails, comprising 15 to 20 total miles for all-terrain motorized vehicle trails.
On these trails, trail maintenance crews use chainsaws, grip hoists, pick mattocks, pulaskis, hammers, shovels and a trail mini dozer.
“I guess the freedom of spending the time, not only to live and work in it, but open it up to people,” Lopez said about maintaining the trails. “We are pretty passionate about this. We like being outdoors and we want to open up access.”
For Vanstaveren, who grew up in northern Utah, but went to school at Southern Utah University, it’s working for the Forest Service in Southern Utah and a great working environment.
“I love being out in the woods and working hard,” he said. “I love trail work. My favorite part about trails is the access it provides for people. It gives a voice for people who go in there. People will love Pine Valley and it gives it [Pine Valley Mountain] more protection.”
While there is always the possibility of employee turnover in federal agencies such as the Forest Service, Rechsteiner said the forestry officials have recently implemented a temp to permanent policy, which allows the federal agency to hire more permanent versus seasonal employees.
The Pine Valley Ranger District is expected to have a total of seven permanent recreation and trails technician employees for the upcoming year. Rechsteiner said he feels pretty confident the district’s employee turnover will stabilize for the next couple of years.
Meanwhile, one of the best ways the district educates the public on the work it does on Forest Service-administered land is through the annual Pine Valley Heritage Days held in July at the Pine Valley Heritage Center, 132 East Main Street in Pine Valley.
The Forest Service-sponsored event allows the Trail Maintenance Program crew members to demonstrate crosscut saws and pack stock using horses and mules, Lopez added.
“The importance of trail maintenance is to provide education to the public,” he said. “To teach them how to appreciate the solitude and peacefulness of the mountain.”
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