A String of Pearls

This week’s Photo Challenge is Community.

As I browsed through my photo files for different ways in which the theme of community could be interpreted, I kept coming back to this set of photos from a day of building trail. Not only was this a community effort, but it was done in the spirit of improving our community and its exceptional system of trails.

COPMOBA (Colorado Plateau Mountain Biking Association) organized the event. They plan and build most of the trails out here on the Western Slope of Colorado. I’m not a big mountain biker, but I, like many others around here, use these same trails for hiking and trail running, so it made sense for me to help build some new trail.

We were divided into three groups and given a quick lesson on how to hike with tools in our hands.

We hiked to the end of a new trail, which was built a few months earlier. Our task was to create about a quarter-mile more of trail to intersect with an already existing trail from a much older trail system.

Above, we are at the spot where we’ll start making trail and are getting a lesson on how exactly to do that.

That’s me, above, loosening a huge slab of rock for the guys.

It took us about three hours to move prickly pear cactus, huge rocks, and other obstacles and to smooth out the new path with rakes. Below, you can see the finished trail, which will become more evident as bikers and hikers use it and pack it down.

This was a great day of community effort to make our community even more desirable and special. Let’s hear it for community!