Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Leader
After almost 5 months away, the Wild Stew Field Crew made their way back to the Circle Seven Trail in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness on the Gila National Forest. This trail climbs approximately 7 miles up Circle Seven Creek to the Continental Divide, and provides access to the Continental Divide Trail/Black Range Crest Trail, Diamond Peak, and various backpacking loop options. We set out with the goal to make this trail passable for hikers, but also to provide access for pack animals to reach the crest to bring supplies up for future work along the crest, as this is currently the shortest of the access trails in the area. We hiked into our trusty campsite Wednesday night, and prepared ourselves for a week of hard work ahead.
Where we left off in May, we had cleared all but the top ¾ of a mile of trail, including part of a ~½ mile section of trail that hadn’t been found in recent years of scouting. Through the use of Lidar imaging, and lots of exploring, our Field Operations Director and trail mapper extraordinaire, Jonathan, rediscovered and flagged this section of trail for the crew, so we could get right to work. With our crew of 4, we were able to accomplish our goal of opening up the rest of the trail to the crest by brushing dense sections of aspen and locust, cutting 21 logs from the trail, building 3 retaining walls, building 2 armored ramps, constructing lots of cairns, and spot treading sections of tread throughout. The steepness of this section of trail posed many challenges, and we constructed 17 drains to help minimize further erosion on these intense slopes.
The steep grades didn’t just affect our work on the tread. It also posed a challenge for us each day as we hiked up around 2,000 feet of elevation each day to get to our worksite. And most of that elevation gain was impressively packed into about 1 mile of trail. We quickly got used to our heels never touching the ground, and we memorized each section of our hike in. First, you tackle the flats (aka your warm up), after which you scale the waterfall, ascend the hill of despair, traverse the calf crusher side slope, clamber up past God’s Thumb, and finally stumble your wobbly legs up to the crest. Over the course of the week, our knees started to ache, our bodies got fatigued, but we also all got stronger.
Being able to revisit this trail after several months away was a gift! Because several different crews work together to complete all the different projects in the area, we don’t always get to see the completion of the projects we start. This hitch, it felt special to get to walk through the whole trail at the end of the week and see all the work we’ve done this year. Not to mention, revisiting this incredible canyon and looking out over some of the most stunning views in the area is always a treat. Although there will be more work to be done on Circle Seven Trail in the future as trees continue to fall and heavy rains reshape the landscape, there’s a sense of satisfaction in knowing we played a part in getting more people out onto a pretty magical trail.
This past hitch was also the final hitch of our beloved crewmate, Kile Stumbo! Kile’s been working with Wild Arizona for the past 3 years, and we’re excited to cheer him on as he moves on to his next adventure! Kile is an incredibly caring, thoughtful, and fun leader for our crew, and we’ll miss having him around to answer our Question of the Day with a gripping tale, to share good food with, and to dream together about cool new adventures or water catchment systems. Luckily, we’ll still be able to attend his famous movie and game nights and catch up on the exciting new things he’ll be doing. Thanks for everything, Kile!
