ABOUT US

FSCT board members (left to right): Patrick Diehl (Secretary), Tori Woodard, Lucy Mitchell, Pier Ingram (Treasurer)

We four Tucsonans on the board of Friends of the Santa Catalina Trails have been doing trail work in the Santa Catalinas for a little over seven years as of fall, 2022. We lop, we pull out, we saw, we dig, we move rocks, and sometimes we break rocks—whatever it takes to open up the trails and make them safe and fun to use.

We have the experience to be able to train and guide volunteers. We’re familiar with Forest Service standards (and look forward to making it possible for them to be met!). We welcome the opportunity to introduce or re-introduce our fellow citizens to the pleasures of rewarding physical work in the wonderfully various environment and clean(er) air of the natural world.

And work opportunities definitely abound. There are about 250 miles of designated trails in the Santa Catalinas that need to be maintained or re-established. Our board members have been focusing on the first three miles of the Pima Canyon Trail, where we rehabilitated the section across the bajada in the winter of 2021/2022 and the first half mile of trail in the canyon in winter of 2022-23; the Butterfly Trail from its southeast end at the Mount Bigelow Trail as far as its junction with the Davis Spring Trail two miles to the northwest; and the first mile or so of the Davis Spring Trail, with Pictograph Rock three-quarters of a mile further down as our goal.

It’s a start. Only about 245 miles to go.

Yes, that figure is intimidating. But seen positively, it offers endless opportunities to be out in nature, while getting productive exercise, and enjoying each other’s company!

Here is what one of us has written about why he has been doing trail work week after week, season after season, year after year:

“Eight years ago, I started doing volunteer trail work in the Santa Catalinas for the Forest Service. Once a week, at first, but then twice a week. Brushing out, at first, but then prying out rocks embedded in the tread and chopping out a bench, with my partner Tori cutting back the vegetation and raking the tread level and smooth. I like looking back over our work at the end of the day, seeing a wide tread where there was a treacherous narrow one. I like being out all day in the grand natural landscapes of the ‘Cats. And I like seeing the new wildflowers opening and the old going to seed as the season advances, hearing the hermit thrushes in the piney woods below Mt Bigelow, and looking out across the San Pedro Valley most of the way to New Mexico. And I like knowing that things are better for my fellow hikers, from toddlers to folks even older than I am, because of the work that I’ve done.”

In addition to getting the trails into proper shape and keeping them that way—obviously already an ambitious goal! – we also hope eventually to provide information about each trail and its current condition, as well as the plants and animals users are likely to see along the trail, both online and in brochures made available at trailheads. There is so much to enjoy in the Santa Catalinas, and enjoyment is what we want to facilitate to the best of our and our volunteers’ ability!

For our logo, we chose the White-Nosed Coati (Nasua narica) because this charismatic creature lives in the Santa Catalina Mountains.

All photos on this website are by Friends unless otherwise attributed

Webmaster: Jeffrey Holsen