Monday, October 12, 2009
South Pueblo Bench Trail
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South Pueblo Bench Trail
Length: 1.6 mile
Elevation Gain: 200 feet
Parking: Pajarito Environmental Education Center
Used by: Hikers, joggers, mountain bikers
Use: Moderate
Connecting Trails: Acid Canyon, North Pueblo Bench
Narrative: The South Pueblo Bench Trail traverses the southern wall of Pueblo Canyon and is a part of many posible loop trips in the downtown area. It is one of the links between the two bridges spanning Pueblo Canyon.
Trail Adopter: Chris Stubben
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From Chris,
ReplyDeleteI was walking on it today and it's a real mess compared to 6 months ago - someone's been driving down there with some type of tractor and has turned the two drainages that are typically wet into mudpits. I have even noticed construction tracks inside the Ridgeway playlot at the start of the trail near Diamond (I'm not sure what they were doing in there). With the remediation complete (?) at the bottom of Olive street, it looks like new trails at starting to appear in all kinds of new directions and perhaps some better markers around this site would help those trying to find a "new" shortcut. Near the Acid Canyon side the trail is fine, except I hate to see the chain link fence there before the bridge that just seems to plummet down into the canyon. Craig, has anybody ever suggested/tried removing those useless chain link fences that seem to be all around the Acid Canyon and Ranch School Trail areas?
Ah, the fences! In 2001 I had the YCC crew dig out one of the concrete supports for the fence along Acid Canyon. It took two days. I haven't been very excited about trying to remove more. But perhaps we should look again at taking down some of the fences.
ReplyDeleteThe Olive St. gate is open and one or more 4-wheelers have been down at the bottom and into the reclamation area. Also, someone drove west from the bridge along the south bench trail - it's not too bad because of the snow and cold, but in a few more weeks if trucks get down again it could be a muddy mess. Can you close (and lock) the gate?
ReplyDeleteThe gate is locked...again. I've replaced the chain and lock about 10 times in the past four years.
ReplyDeleteHiked along the trail today and the two mudpits are still there, the one below the Ridgeway playlot is especially bad. Also, there are alot of Siberian elms popping up around the old sewage plant. Otherwise the trail is dry and in good condition.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of hand winches and chains, and a couple of steel pry bars, and lots of practice using such to pull out tree stumps. Surely fence posts won't be much harder than tree stumps?
ReplyDeleteThe Atomic Energy Commission was very generous with its concrete: Fence posts that are set in about a cubic yard of concrete are way harder to remove than tree stumps!
ReplyDeleteSo ... don't bother pull the fence posts? Sounds like the most effective solution would be to cut off the posts and ignore the concrete footings as just another kind of boulder. Seriously, those footings don't sound very hard to pull out, if there are suitable anchor points, but then what? How and to where should they be removed from the canyons?
ReplyDeleteOur over-zealous YCC stumbled on a fence post and started digging. I could have warned them not to bother...we'll be fixing the problem this morning.
ReplyDelete