Volunteers gathered Saturday morning at various locations to maintain the trails they regularly use.
Park City native Erin O’Keefe and long-time resident Jeff Richard were in Round Valley cutting back vegetation with the Mountain Trails Foundation.
“We're very active trail users within the community, and so we thought it'd be great to come and give back to something that brings so much joy and provides such wonderful recreation to our community,” O’Keefe said.
Zach Strickland with Mountain Trails Foundation said 60 volunteers in Round Valley did tread and drain work, cut back vegetation and delineated trails.
Another 30 volunteers worked in Empire Canyon to build a new hiking trail. The trail starts at Lookout trail and connects Deer Valley to the Silver Lake area.
Strickland said the annual trail maintenance event is always well attended.
“Last year we had a bunch of people show up,” he said. “So this year we had to cap the event so that we could manage it and handle the workload of humans.”
Basin Recreation joined in the efforts on National Trails Day as well. Open Space Lead Tech Seychelle Marcus said 10 volunteers and five staff members worked throughout the morning to cut a trail near the Run-A-Muk dog park.
“We have about a .1 section of trail up on 11 acre, so pretty far up this hill that nobody really knows exists,” she said. “So the volunteers are helping recut the trail so that people can get out on it again.”
Volunteers also fixed tread from badger holes and water routed the trail.
Marcus said six Basin Recreation employees manage about 200 miles of trails in the Snyderville Basin and they rely on community volunteers to keep trails accessible.
