Volunteering with Phoenix Parks and Recreation
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| Volunteering with City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation |
The last time I went hiking was WAAAAAAY back in May of this year. On a Saturday morning, I drove down to the Phoenix Mountain Preserve from the Sun City/Peoria, AZ area. For my hiking adventure that day, I partially hiked the infamous Piestewa Peak Summit Trail #300 before moving on to the Freedom Trail #302. While the length of the hike was short, less than five miles, it was still challenging. Despite the achievement of hiking halfway to the top of the Piestewa Peak Summit Trail #300, a distance of about 0.6 miles, there was an emptiness about the hike. This is a hike that I am still planning on blogging about here on Blogger, so I won't go into too much detail about the hike for this specific post. The emptiness about the hike was that I was hiking by myself. After that hike, the daily temperatures in the Phoenix area took a dramatic upswing during the summer months. Daily temperatures routinely reached over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Trails across the Phoenix area were closed on a daily basis due to the high desert temperatures. If you wanted to get out and go hiking, you had to be out on the trail as early as 5:00 AM, when most of the parks open. As a result, I just wasn't able to get out and do the hiking that I wanted to do.
As the temperatures continued to climb during the summer months, I was looking for ways to get back into hiking. Back in late February/early March of this year, I went on an introductory hike with the Sun City Hikers, a hiking club based in Sun City, AZ. I wasn't very happy during the introductory hike. Club members at the hike repeatedly stated that Sun City Hikers was meant for retirees living in Sun City. If you weren't retired and over a certain age, then they would have preferred that you didn't join their club. Moreover, I just didn't find anyone particularly friendly or interesting at the introductory hike. As a result, I didn't join Sun City Hikers.
As I have mentioned in previous posts on my blog, I tried meeting people while attending classes given by REI, such as the sunset kayaking trip at Lake Pleasant, the Kayaking 101 class also at Lake Pleasant (read about my trip here), the Map Reading class at Papago Park near downtown Phoenix (the subject of a future post), and the nighttime hike at Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Those classes with REI were also a mixed bag. The only people that I met in those classes that were friendly and interesting to be with were the guides and instructors. Most of the participants in the classes just weren't very interesting or friendly. What's interesting is that I attended the class with the intent of meeting people. Just like my experience with Sun City Hikers.
Furthermore, I was looking at doing some camping and backpacking in areas outside of Phoenix. I even attended a couple of classes about backpacking and camping at the REI in Paradise Valley. To do those activities, I would have to spend a lot of money on buying new equipment. Although I have saved up a lot of money, I am not prepared to potentially spend several thousands of dollars on new equipment, such as a new backpack, a new sleeping bag, a new tent, and so on. Plus, I have no experience backpacking alone out in the wild.
Then one day, it hit me. The answer to my problem of not having anyone to go hiking with was to be a park steward with the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation. In another post that I have yet to write, when I went hiking in the Deem Hills in northern Phoenix back in December 2023, I met a volunteer park steward with the City of Phoenix. He explained to me that he was an unpaid volunteer with Phoenix Parks and Recreation. I remember him saying that he would go and hike various trails maintained by the City of Phoenix in order to check their condition and pass along any important notes to Phoenix Parks and Recreation.
Thus, becoming a volunteer park steward seemed to be a way out of my conundrum. I went to the Phoenix Parks and Recreation webpage, located the volunteer section, and submitted the required information. After a one-hour online meeting with an official from Phoenix Parks and Recreation, I was officially entered into the volunteer park steward program.
Volunteer Trail Maintenance Opportunities
After attending the online meeting, I was then able to log into the Volunteer Phoenix website to start looking for volunteer opportunities with Phoenix Parks and Recreation. After getting busy with other things, I eventually logged into the Volunteer Phoenix website and started to look for volunteer opportunities. While in college, I spent one weekend in southwest New Mexico doing trail maintenance. It was hard work using tools like a pick, a shovel, and a tool known as a MacLeod, but it was fun being in the mountains away from school. I only did the work once. As a result, I started looking through the Volunteer Phoenix website for trail maintenance opportunities. Eventually, I signed up for two trail maintenance opportunities. Both trail maintenance opportunities were located at the Phoenix Mountain Preserve.
Trail Maintenance on the Irregular Trail at Dreamy Draw
For my first trail maintenance volunteer assignment, I worked on a trail known as the Irregular Trail.
The trail maintenance was scheduled for Friday, November 1st, with a start time at 6:00 AM. The trail maintenance had a scheduled end time of 10:00 AM. During the summer months, trail maintenance typically starts as early as 5:30 AM.
Due to the early start time, I set the alarm on my cell phone to wake me up at 4:15 AM. Before going to bed, I made sure to pack everything I thought I would need into my Gregory hydration pack, such as a pocket knife, my Black Diamond head lamp, the pair of heavy duty work gloves that I had recently bought at Home Depot, a couple of Clif bars for food to eat, the Trek portable headlight from my bike, and a scarf for my neck. I also made sure to fill up the 3-liter water bladder in my Gregory hydration pack to maximum capacity.
After waking up, getting dressed, and having a small breakfast, I gathered my Gregory hydration pack, my hat, and my hiking boots and then headed to the car. I then entered Dreamy Draw Trailhead into Google Maps on my phone and then clicked on Start. I was in for a BIG shock once I got on the highway.
I was unprepared for rush hour traffic driving eastbound on Highway 101 at 5:00 AM on a Friday morning. Not only were all of the traffic lanes crowded, but traffic was also moving at a high rate of speed. As I was struggling to maintain my car at 65 MPH, the speed limit, in the center lane of traffic, there were cars and trucks passing me that were easily exceeding the speed limit by a large margin. Once I headed south on Highway 51, the traffic did not let up. Not one bit.
It came as a great relief when I took the offramp for Northern Avenue and then made the left turn to enter the Dreamy Draw Trailhead area. When I parked my car, there were only two or three other cars in the parking lot. It was quite a contrast from the last time I was at Dreamy Draw, when the parking lot was crowded.
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| Dreamy Draw Trailhead at 5:30 AM. |
After finishing my coffee, I took off my running shoes and put on my hiking boots. I then put on my Gregory hydration pack on my back and then headed up to the trailhead.
Once at the trailhead, I met the other people that were going to work on the Irregular Trail. The first person I met was Ranger Brian. At first, his appearance seemed to be a little rough around the edges. However, he was quite friendly and happy to have volunteers assist him with trail maintenance. It was obvious to me that he had been a park ranger with the Phoenix Parks and Recreation for quite some time. The other three people I met were wearing their yellow Park Steward t-shirts. Heidi appeared to be a retiree. It emerged that she spent a lot of her time doing volunteer work for Phoenix Parks and Recreation. Mason said that he used to work for Honeywell as an aerospace engineer. I never found out what Zach did, but he was super friendly and easy going.
As we left the Dreamy Draw Trailhead, Ranger Brian said that we were going to do some trail maintenance on sections of the Irregular Trail. As the sun started to rise above the horizon, I instantly recognized what trails we had taken. These were all trails that I had hiked on during my previous visits to the Dreamy Draw area. From the Dreamy Draw trailhead, we took the Connector Trail to the Dreamy Draw Nature Trail. After hiking a short distance, we then went on to the Perl Charles Memorial (1A) Trail. After hiking for approximately 30 minutes, we arrived at the Irregular Trail.
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| Location of Irregular Trail at Phoenix Mountain Preserve |
Hidden behind a bush just off the trail were the trail maintenance tools. There was a collection of picks (also known as a Mattock), McLeod fire tools, and leaf rakes. It had been some time since I had used either a pick or a McLeod during the one time I did trail maintenance work in college. The Mattock and the McLeod are the standard tools for trail maintenance as well as for fighting forest fires.
The Mattock tool, or pick, is used to smash down large rocks as well as to quickly dig holes. The Mattock can also be used as a lever to move really big rocks. Ranger Brian, Mason, and Zach primarily used the Mattock to smash large rocks into smaller rocks.
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| Mattock (Pick) Tool |
The McLeod fire tool has two edges. One edge has teeth and is very similar to a rake. This edge is used to scrape away small rocks and other pieces of debris, such as pieces of wood. The second edge of the McLeod fire tool is similar to a garden hoe. This edge is used to cut objects like tree roots and so on.
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| McLeod Fire Tool |
Ranger Brian explained two of the primary reasons for performing trail maintenance on the Irregular Trail. First, water runoff from when it rains will erode the trail. It doesn't rain very often at the Phoenix Mountain Preserve; however, when it does rain, it's usually a significant amount. Thus, part of our purpose that day was to make some adjustments to the trail so that water runoff would have less of an impact on the trail. Second, despite having a clearly marked trail, hikers will occasionally stray off the trail, widening the trail. It happens. Sometimes the trail may have a rocky area, and hikers will walk around the rocky area, creating a new part of the trail. According to Ranger Brian, this is known as trail creep. Thus, there were parts of the Irregular Trail where we had to either narrow or expand the width of the trail.
Ranger Brian is an expert on trail maintenance. He knew all of the various techniques to implement in any given situation. I believe he said that he had been doing trail maintenance for close to twenty years. He also said that while he teaches a class on trail maintenance for volunteers at Phoenix Parks and Recreation, he believed that getting out and doing the work was the best teacher.
After we picked up the tools, Ranger Brian then identified a couple of spots on the Irregular Trail that needed maintenance. Since they already had a lot of experience performing trail maintenance, Mason and Zach went off on their own. I worked with Heidi and Ranger Brian. The workflow was simple. Ranger Brian would use the Mattock to smash large rocks into smaller rocks. Heidi and I would then come in with our McLeod tools and remove the smaller rocks. We would also use the McLeod tools to reshape the trail. Sometimes we had to move rocks around with our hands. We also would use the McLeod tools to rebuild and adjust the edge of the trail. Heidi and I also used the McLeod tools to create a drainage ditch for water runoff. As a final step, we would then use the leaf rakes to smooth out the trail before moving on to the next area.
Trail maintenance was physically demanding work. Before you do it, you want to make sure that you are in relatively good physical shape. Still, it was gratifying to see the amount of trail maintenance we had accomplished in only a couple of hours. At about 9:45 AM or so, Ranger Brian had decided that we were finished for the day. We had all of the trail maintenance tools behind a bush and hiked back to the Dreamy Draw trailhead.
Since I was so busy with assisting Ranger Brian, Heidi, Mason, and Zach with trail maintenance, I completely forgot to take any photos. Ranger Brian took several photos while we worked. I imagine that the photos were for the Phoenix Parks and Recreation social media sites on Instagram and Twitter/X. So far, I have yet to see online any of the photos that Ranger Brian took. However, since I have hiked in the area for the Irregular Trail on a couple of previous occasions, I do have photos of the area right here on my blog. You can see the photos here and here. It's a beautiful area to hike in. You do have to enjoy being in the desert, however.
On the Way Back to Sun City...
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| Waffle House Restaurant in northern Phoenix, AZ. |
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| Cup of Waffle House Coffee. |
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| Waffle House Menu. |
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| All-Star Special Breakfast at Waffle House. |
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| Classic Waffle from Waffle House. |
