By Kevin Adams, SRRTF President

Did you know that the Verde Valley has provided shelter and sustenance to human cultures for thousands of years? When the first white settlers arrived in the Verde Valley in 19^th century, they discovered the remains of ancient cultures, the largest of which are now protected as National Monuments. But large numbers of major and minor archaeology sites dot the landscape and remain unprotected and, in many cases, undocumented. These sites are protected by Federal law.

Typically, when the Red Rock Ranger District wants to do a construction project (e.g., build a new trail), the District’s archaeologist must determine how to protect Native American archeological sites and historic properties. This may require surveying the project area and then consulting with the State Historic Preservation Office on the findings.

To plan for a slate of proposed new trails in 2024, the Forest Service asked the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund to help fund the $157,000 cost for the legally requisite archaeological surveys. The organization successfully raised the full amount through SRRTF supporters.

The Trail Fund then worked with forest archaeologists to contract with the firm Tetra Tech to conduct the surveys. The results, expected in August, will be used to protect cultural sites from trail construction impacts.

To bring this work to life, we asked Tetra Tech’s archaeologist Katheryn “Kat” Turney a few questions.

What it’s like to perform these surveys? “It is exhilarating, exhausting, completely all-encompassing and engrossing. It can be sunny or raining, hot or cold and most archaeologists will still enjoy survey. Let’s face it, it’s not a job, it is a life’s work and done with heart and a passion for those who came before us. We always want to know more, see more, experience more. It is a life of adventure.”

What’s the most interesting thing you found during one of these surveys? “An intact floor in a cliff dwelling. It was if the people living there had just walked away yesterday. Doug Mitchell, my co-worker, had an interesting find while on an excavation in Calgary, Alberta. They were excavating a large buffalo kill. They had a 1 meter x 1 meter unit open and were cleaning up a vertebral column for photos. While working between two of the cervical, he heard a “click” on his trowel. He extracted what turned out to be a quartz crystal corner-notched projectile point. They later dated the bone bed to 8200 BC.”

What was the strangest thing found during these surveys? “Fifteen office chairs, complete with wheels, each spaced out about 50 ft. apart, a dismembered baby doll, seven left shoes from different sized feet, a fish grave complete with aquarium set-up, and lots of golf balls in very remote places.” Makes you wonder what future archaeologist will think of our time.

What should a lay person understand about your work? “Well, the obvious thing would be to say that we don’t do dinosaurs…but also that there is more to archaeology than just excavation. We survey, we monitor at construction sites, and most of us spend more time in the office or the lab writing reports, researching and conducting artifact analysis than we do in the field.”  

Anything else? “We really dislike stacked rocks. It’s bad for the environment, messes with what is and is not a trail, and…. well, it irritates the crap out of us. Plain and simple, please don’t stack the rocks! If by chance you are lucky enough to find an artifact in the field, please take all the pictures you want and then leave it where you found it. An artifact out of context is not helpful to the archaeological record. Oh, and if you find something interesting, call me!”

You can learn more about the human history Verde Valley at the Verde Valley Archaeology Center and Museum in Camp Verde.

Hikers and bikers on certain Red Rock trails during the week of April 10^th had an opportunity to watch the lights-camera-action of a professional film crew creating a documentary on the work of the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund. The Los Angeles-based film crew and an international marketing firm are creating short documentary-style showcase pieces on inspirational land stewardship work being accomplished with volunteers.

The final piece will explain the unique partnership between US Forest Service, Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund and Friends of the Forest that supports the demanding maintenance needs of the remarkable 400-mile system of non-motorized trails.  With a 10-member board of directors and a single staff member, the SRRTF has raised in excess of $2.4million since inception, all for the maintenance and enhancement of non-motorized trails in the Red Rock Ranger District

“It was an exciting week working with our volunteers and local spokespersons to share our story in such a way that might inspire vision and volunteerism in other parts of the country”, says Kevin Adams, president of the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund.  He added, “From all indicators – the hikers and bikers, young and old, really enjoyed the added entertainment value as well.”

The 40+ person production and agency management team lodged at Sedona Real Inn and Suites (one of our generous Trail Keeper sponsors), and raved about meals enjoyed at Rascal, Rene’s, Mooney’s and Stagecoach Sedona.

I am pleased to report that our year-end quarterly fundraising drive brought in a record $281,360 (all sources) towards our many projects on the docket for 2023. Every contribution plays a meaningful part in maintaining the trail system – THANK YOU

The success of the year-end campaign completes the last of the strategic goals from the business plan adopted in 2018. The dedication and excellent work of our board of directors is to be commended. As a team, they met or exceed all of our stated intentions, experimented, learned and grew as an organization. My gratitude to each of them for their service. 

Our executive committee for 2023 is laying the foundation of our next 5-year strategic plan. During the next few months, the board of directors will finalize that plan, with implementation scheduled for our next fiscal year (October 1st).

A key organizational development goal from the last plan was to bring on a paid professional staff member to take us to the next level. I am pleased to announce that on December 1st, Camille Cox officially joined our team as program director. She will be assisting our three standing committee chairs with their activities and assuming chairmanship of one of the committees sometime in March.

This new position – and the opportunity it opens up for the SRRTF – was made possible through a grant from the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund.

Please enjoy the revamped design of our quarterly newsletter and the variety of articles reporting on the projects made possible through your generosity.

Phase 4 to Complete in March

The final stretch of the ambitious restoration project for Cathedral Rock Trail is underway, and with cooperation from Mother Nature, it should be complete and open by early April.

This last section of Phase Four is the endpoint of a project that started in the Fall of 2021. This final push involves the uppermost area from Switchback Staircase to End of Trail. 

Steep, Tough Terrain  Cathedral Rock Trail has many unique qualities that make it a place like no other in the Coconino National Forest. Erosive soils, steep terrain, slick rock, and frequent "washouts" make it particularly challenging to Forest Service trail managers. It presents specific exceptional requirements for rock construction not seen elsewhere in the Red Rock Ranger District. Although rock work is always intensive and time-consuming, the conditions on Cathedral are extreme.

Particularly daunting is the challenge of moving essential heavy equipment uphill each day. Forrest Gale and Tommy Cogger, Summit to Sea consultants who are working with the USFS on the project, explain, "In our experience in the southwest, we compare this style/technique and caliber of trail building to what you find on the Grand Canyon trails. All of the equipment is hauled up by hand, on the backs of workers and on a rock dolly.”

Kevin Kuhl, trails/wilderness/OHV coordinator for the Red Rock Ranger District, provided the following update. “Crews are currently gearing up by installing new fencing at the junction of the Cathedral Rock and Templeton trails. This will provide for transition from the open, slick rock terrain on Templeton. It will also better delineate the trail alignment of Cathedral, and reduce redundant social trail alignments on the beginning of the Cathedral slick rock climb. Once the project starts, crews will focus on safely rigging rock to efficiently move it to the construction areas. Then the rock splitting and shaping will start for new check step construction.”

Trail Closure and Re-Opening  According to Kuhl, schedule limitations affecting the American Conservation Experience youth corps crew supporting the project pushed their start date back by a week, impacting completion of the USFS crew work until the end of March.

The lower 0.2-mile portion of the trail from Cathedral Rock trailhead to the Templeton junction will be open to the public for the full duration of the project. The upper 0.3-mile portion of the trail – from the Templeton Junction to the terminus – will remain closed from February 1^st to March 31^st, unless work is completed earlier and all hazards related to this work are mitigated. He added, “We anticipate volunteer assistance from the Westerners Hiking Club and Friends of the Forest to help us educate the public about the ongoing Forest Closure Order of Cathedral Rock Trail”.

Funding Still Needed to Bridge the Chasm  The project got off the ground financially when the USFS received money from the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020. As that funding was insufficient to cover the cost, the USFS partnered with the SRRTF to raise what was needed to complete the project. This has been largely achieved through remarkably generous support of private donors and grants.

“Significant donations from the National Forest Foundation ($27,100), Enchantment Resort ($15,000), the Sedona Westerners 2022 Trail Fund Campaign ($10,000+), Kahtoola ($8,000) and 66 other donors, have closed the funding gap to $69,760,” stated Kevin Adams, SRRTF president. He added, “We’re urging the community to help bring this project to full, successful closure by March 1^st”.

All donations are tax-deductible, and easy to make at redrocktrailfund.org. On the home page, you can choose to donate specifically to the Cathedral Rock Trail, and your full donation will be used for that project.

In November of 2012, 100+ determined trail enthusiasts, sardine-packed themselves into a tiny room in the Village of Oak Creek and kick-started a master planning process for the Red Rock District trail system. As  a result of this year-long sequence of public meetings, more than 130 miles of new non-motorized trails were identified along with enhancements to existing trails. And from that planning, 61 miles of new trails were approved and constructed.

These meetings also produced a new emphasis on trail maintenance. Trail Crew members (staff who do the actual trail maintenance) increased from one full-year and two seasonal, to two full-year and 12 seasonal members on duty this field season. Today, this crew maintains 250-300 trail miles annually.

And last, to pay for this ambitious plan, the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund was created to raise funds for the maintenance and enhancement of the non-motorized trails on National Forest land near Sedona and the VOC, and to educate the public about trail management issues.

The Red Rock Ranger District is now working on the next phase of ~56 miles of trail enhancements using a new process that may exclude these enhancements from more lengthy environmental review and analysis (known as “categorical exclusions”). Categorical exclusion still involve interdisciplinary review and documentation through the established planning process to avoid and minimize environmental impacts.

The District must first determine that no extraordinary circumstances are present in any proposed project area to categorically exclude the project(s). This is accomplished with input from an interdisciplinary team of staff specialists that also analyze how the proposed project may affect their individual resource.

The wildlife biologist reviews the impact of the proposed action on terrestrial threatened and endangered species, as well as on migratory birds and Forest Service sensitive species. If threatened and endangered species impacts are anticipated, the Forest Service then consults with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The hydrology specialist’s review focuses on wetland or municipal watershed impacts. The wilderness specialist determines if the project falls in any congressionally designated areas such as wilderness, and assesses if the project aligns with the intent of the designation(s). Other specialists will ensure that proposed action is consistent with the Coconino National Forest Plan and other laws and regulations.

Lastly, the District’s archaeologist must determine if there are likely impacts to First Nations’ archeological sites or historic properties. This typically requires surveying the area and consulting with the State Historic Preservation Office on findings. Archaeologists from Tetra Tech, under contract to and funded by the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund, are conducting these surveys over the next several months. You may see them performing their field work in select forest areas near the VOC or Sedona.

Public concerns and specialist input are considered in the District’s decision process, which will hopefully culminate in a Decision Memo approving proposed trail enhancements, new trails and any associated design features/mitigation measures. Implementation will then take several years as funding allows.

SRRTF will lead that funding effort through its partnership with the Forest Service.

On December 1st, Camille Cox joined the Trail Fund as program director.

As mentioned in Kevin’s lead article – a grant from the AZ State Parks Heritage Fund made it possible to fulfill our development goal of adding muscle to our game with full-time professional staff.

Camille is a familiar presence in the Sedona region. She has served on a long list of non-profit boards and committees since arriving here in 2015 – notably as president of the Big Park Council from 2020-22.

Professionally, she brings deep experience in marketing. During the past 40 years she has worked client-side for two start-up companies and an international Fortune 500 corporation; she also founded two marketing agencies.

She lives in Pine Valley on the edge of the Village of Oak Creek with her husband Philip and their loyal dog Jackie.

Contact: camille4trails@gmail.com.

By Kevin Kuhl, USFS Red Rock Ranger District

This season has likely been one for the record books! We have the largest trail crew we’ve ever had, and likely some of the highest volunteer attendance for maintenance-based trail events. Our last event had over 45 people show up and sign-up space on the list overflowed to the margins of the paper! Since the beginning of the season, we’ve had seven public volunteer events and five more are planned. All had turnouts of 25+ people except one very cold, wet morning where only 15 hardy people joined in.

With our crew members mostly new to the District or Forest, we organized a weeklong training conducted by Flagline Trails (funded through the SRRTF) to teach the finer aspects of Red Rock trail maintenance, the theory behind the work, project layout and how to teach volunteers to assist us with this work. This jump-start on building our crews’ district knowledge, in combination with the consistent weather, has allowed for great soil moisture … which equals more drainage work than normal. Small rock projects have also been added due to damage from the summer monsoon storms.

The crew has been prepping for the Cathedral Rock project by learning some advanced rigging and rock splitting skillsets to better utilize our crews on the final Phase of the project. This training is also conducted by Flagline Trails. Last year, most of the rock was split and hand-carried with nets. Due to the steepness of the project site, we will be utilizing grip hoists, wire ropes, nylon slings and mechanical advantage to move the rock. We hope this improves efficiency and safety.

A forest closure order has been signed off, closing the trail from the Templeton Junction to the terminus at the top from February 1^st to March 31st. This will once again allow our crews to better manage the project site and production of work, while not having to worry about falling rocks on hikers below them due to steep terrain. We’ve arranged for Friends of the Forest and The Westerners Hiking Club to assist us in trail closure education and outreach at the Cathedral Rock Trailhead and at the Templeton junction during the closure.

Tetra Tech, a contract firm based in Colorado, is assisting with the Red Rock Trails NEPA project. They have surveyed most of the shorter linear project areas and are close to 50% done with the Turkey Creek system. We anticipate public scoping for this project to be released this spring.

Solutions for Staffing  To increase our employee recruitment, we have been able to attract more applicants from Flagstaff with formalized commuting assistance. We started the first vanpool program on the Coconino National Forest for Trail Crew employees. This is not a Forest Service funded program, but uses a rental vehicle funded by Federal Transit Subsidies and administered by the Department of Transportation – often at no cost to employees. Eight people are now benefiting, which makes daily commuting from Flagstaff far more attractive, based on our challenges with limited local government housing.

Who doesn't enjoy a great Christmas story? The Little Off the Beaten Path Meet-up Group in Phoenix has an annual Christmas charity hike - this year clamouring 3.6 miles from South Mtn Park into Hidden Valley. 

One of the members was still aglow from a visit to Sedona. She stayed at the Sedona Real Inn & Suites and learned from the hotelier about the Red Rock Trail Fund. They are one of our local business that supports the Fund by offering guests an opportunity to make a donation on their registration card. The meet-up member's Trail Fund story inspired the group to make us the recipient of their charity collection! They sent their donation check to the manager of Sedona Real Inn, who forwarded it to us along with this fun photo.

Thank you Meet-up Santas for the dollars and the sweet surprise! Sedona Real Inn & Suites, we thank for your commitment to our trails!

We are pleased to introduce one of our new directors and our treasurer - Mark Bealafeld.

Mark has been a Sedona resident for five years, originally hailing from Ann Arbor, MI. He has an MBA in finance and 30 years experience in finance, accounting and systems administration.

He also has many years of experience both as a volunteer and board member for not-for-profit organizations including currently serving as treasurer for the Sedona Westerners hiking club. He is an avid hiker and volunteer hike leader for the Westerners.

We welcome him and believe he will be a valuable addition to our board.