A special thanks to all of the Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalist members who rolled up their sleeves and pitched in with a lot of hard work and sweat to help reopen the ice- storm damaged trails at Hobbs State Park:

Diane Gately, James Gately, Russell Holt, Hal Johnson, Becki Kruse, Bruce Pertle, Steve Sampers, Steve Terry, and Ralph Weber.

The Hobbs State Park trails were impacted by a devastating ice storm that passed through Northwest Arkansas in late January 2009.  The ice storm caused extensive tree damage throughout the area.  All of the Hobbs State Park’s 34 miles of trails were heavily impacted.  Park officials estimated that approximately 100 trees had fallen per mile across these trails, making them totally impassable.  As result, all of their trails were closed from public use until the massive trail damage could be cleared from them.

Due to the extensive damage involved, Hobbs State Park reached out to the public in February for volunteers to help their staff to clear the trail damage.  Since the Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalist Chapter was established in March 2009, the new Master Naturalist members responded to this call and provided significant volunteer support.  These members spent over 26 days, contributing over 456 combined hours, out on the trails working with Al Knox, the Park Trails Coordinator, to clear the tree damage.  Strong backs and arms were needed to drag and toss the heavy tree debris, cut by Park staff sawyers, 20-50 feet away from the trail path.  In addition, built up debris on the foot path was required to be raked off and overgrowth had to be lopped back to clear a trail corridor large enough to accommodate hikers, bikers, and horse riders.  Besides volunteering their time, these Master Naturalist volunteers contributed a lot of hard work, sweat, and sore muscles to the effort.  The Master Naturalists also stepped up their assistance and worked hard to ensure the Little Clifty Creek trail damage was cleared in time for the scheduled “Battle For Townsend’s Ridge” mountain bike race.  The bikers, following the race, had very high praise about the overall condition of the trail.  The members also assisted the Park staff with the construction of a new 2 mile trail spur connecting the new Hobbs State Park Visitor Center with the Little Clifty Creek trail, of course after first clearing the extensive tree damage along the new route.

Hobbs State Park was finally able to declare on 27 July that “After months of tree and brush removal following last January’s ice storm, all trails at Hobbs State Park – Conservation Area are again open”. 

Hoo-rah!!  A job well done.

Steve Sampers