Jacksonville, Ore.– “So much planning, so much paperwork to actually get to this point where we are actually digging trail. This is fantastic.”
David Calahan, Chair of the Applegate Trail Association in Jacksonville, is guiding a group of young volunteers on what is the long awaited ground breaking of the East Applegate Ridge Trail.
“There will be hundreds of people involved in this before it’s done,” says Calahan.
Phase one of the trail, on mostly BLM lands, will stretch just over five miles from Sterling Creek Road to highway 238, and that’s just the beginning.
“All the way to Grants Pass, Cathedral Hill.”
All together that will be more than 50 miles of trail digging and a number of years of work.
“I hope we can get it done in a decade,” Calahan says. “You know it takes funding and a process.”
Several grants, fundraising and donations are making all of the work possible, but Calahan says a lot of the credit goes to the volunteers.
“Hard, hard work and you know you got to pace yourself. This is not for the weak. You’ve got to really have some stamina or you will give up before the end of the first day,” he says.
After all of the hard work is done, Calahan hopes this new trail will offer the peace and rejuvenation that he says he’s always felt in nature.
“This is where I heal. For me, this is where I feel like I’m whole.”
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