The Indian Trail in the woods off Gladstone Boulevard may recently have gone unnoticed by many passersby due to lack of upkeep — but not anymore.
About 50 volunteers, most of them students competing in the Skills USA national competition this past week in Kansas City, came together this past Friday to clear away brush and fallen trees along the trail. They worked diligently alongside the mosquitoes in the pushing-100-degree heat, revealing a 6-foot-wide dirt path for hikers.
“We kind of wanted to do this to tie in with the Cliff Drive car-free weekends,” said Cathy Lay, assistant to the director of Northeast Mobile Crime Watch.
Timberland Pro and City Year corporations sponsored the 1.25-mile trail project. This is the fifth year Timberland has volunteered for Historic Northeast. Some of the other projects they’ve helped with in the past have included the murals at Northeast High School and at Ninth Street and Van Brunt Boulevard and projects at Lykins, Budd and Sheffield parks.
Timberland Production Coordinator Vaughan Morgan said a passerby stopped Friday morning to ask what the volunteers were working on, and he said although he’d lived in Northeast 20 years, he’d never known about the trail.
Lay said the city Parks and Recreation Department would be putting up new sign markers to indicate the entrances of the trail off Gladstone Boulevard at Cliff Drive, White Street and Lawn Street.
After all the hard work in the sweltering heat was complete Friday, walkers celebrated the accomplishment with a kick-off walk. |
