Volunteers asked to meet at Greenwaters Park bridge this weekend to help start trail expansion

By MICHELLE EMMONS and KEVIN ROWELL/For The Herald — Calling all sawyers, swampers, loppers and rakers! We are planning to kick off the Greenwaters Park Trail Expansion project on Halloween weekend.

This project will add about 1.5 miles of new paths that will be flat, wide and easy for hikers, runners, dog walkers, small children, elderly folks and slow-speed bicyclists. We will also be adding a trail specifically for mountain bikers to get from the Larison Trails to the park without using the slow-speed paths.

We will be working Friday morning, Oct. 29, from 9 a.m. to noon and Saturday, Oct. 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Each day we will meet at 9 a.m. at the Jim Tharp Memorial Bridge over the river at the park.

This event is all outdoors and COVID-safe. That means you should bring a mask to wear in case you are working in close quarters with others; otherwise please observe social distancing guidelines.

Our first step is to clear the trail corridors. We are asking folks to bring their favorite brush-cutting tool — clipper, lopper, folding saw, garden shear, etc. With a crew leader, workers on Friday morning will do some cutting and clearing, while clearly marking the corridors for Saturday.

Ultimately, we would like to clear all these corridors in preparation for an invasive-growth removal project that will take place in late February and March thanks to Walama Restoration. Once the invasive weeds are gone, we will plan to finish this project digging some tread by hand and some by machine.

The Walama Restoration Project is a Eugene-based nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental stewardship and biological diversity through education and habitat restoration.

We love that they are pulling weeds and beautifying the Greenwaters Trail for us before we build, so we want to get all of the corridor logged out and brushed well before Walama needs to be done with their work in March.

The Greenwaters Trail System, which is in the Willamette National Forest, and the attached city park are so beautiful and we are lucky to have such a nice outdoor attraction in our town. The Alpine Trail Crew Association and our friends from our local Middle Fork Ranger District are very excited to bring this new expansion to fruition.

Please register as a Forest Service volunteer by clicking or tapping here and be sure to indicate which days you would like to volunteer. If navigating the Forest Service volunteer signup is inaccessible for your use, please just show up and we’ll have any necessary paperwork for you to fill out on site.

Come with snacks and water, gloves and boots. If you have a Forest Service saw certification, please bring your saw, fuel and personal protective equipment if you are willing to help buck logs out of the trailway.

We look forward to seeing you there, rain or shine!

Michelle Emmons of Oakridge is a founding director of the Alpine Trail Crew Association as well as Upper Willamette watershed program manager for the nonprofit Willamette Riverkeeper stewardship organization. She may be reached by email at [email protected]

 Kevin Rowell is trails manager for the Middle Fork Ranger District of the U.S. Forest Service. Those with questions may reach him at 541-232-9101.