FBP was instrumental in replacing the Bridge Bowl Trail #7. The park has many trails created haphazardly, some without any consideration of erosion and damage to native plant communities. The existing trail was one of these. It started in a delicate wet-land prairie area then went straight up a steep hillside. It was rapidly becoming a small eroded canyon and because of it's position at the entrance to the HBRA was heavily used. The FBP, working with Lane Co. Parks, located a new path for the trail which was laid out in summer 1996. Brush clearing work parties were organized and the underbrush removed where the trail would be. Care was taken to save native trees and shrubs where possible, and remove exotics like scotchbroom and blackberry. Lane Co. Parks then proceeded with trail building, bringing in experienced trail builders from the Northwest Youth Corps. In September a major trail building work project, sponsored by REI and organized by FBP and LCP, completed work on excavating the tread of the trail. Helped along by the exposure REI brought to the effort a sizable 30+ group of volunteers showed up. Several members of the Northwest Youth Corps, who had been working on the trail all week, volunteered their time to act as crew leaders and instruct the eager volunteers in the fine art of trail building. Later work crews have blocked off the old trail and taken steps to reduce the erosion. Volunteer native plant specialists are planting native grasses in areas disturbed along the new trail and future work parties will concentrate on eliminating exotic plants along the trail.
These photographs were taken by REI employee Dustin Dawson. Special thanks to Colleen Wolf of REI for making copies of the photos available to us.
Start to finish sequence of shots shows what many hands working together can accomplish.
The Friends of Buford Park and Mt. Pisgah have "adopted" this trail and will be primarily responsible for it's care and improvement. We hope other trail users will follow our lead and eventually adopt other park trails. Work parties are regularily scheduled to improvement this trail. The goal is to get the whole trail surfaced with gravel or chips so it can be used year-around.
