A volunteer grooms a trail during last year's National Trails Day celebration at the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. Special to VIEW
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Get Outdoors Nevada is encouraging residents to do just that, get outdoors on Saturday in honor of National Trails Day.
"National Trails Day is really a celebration," said Donna Grady, project manager with UNLV's Public Lands Institute. "Not everyone celebrates with events, some just get out and explore trails."
The UNLV Public Lands Institute and the Southern Nevada Interagency Volunteer Program have partnered together to form Get Outdoors Nevada, a conservation group. The members will be at the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area near Mount Charleston restoring sections of the Lee Canyon Bristlecone trail. The group also will build a fence to help protect a blue butterfly habitat and pick up trash.
"We really encourage volunteers to come out and take a little ownership of the project," said Amy Meketi, U.S. Forest Service natural resource officer and volunteer coordinator. "People can learn about the sensitive and endemic species."
The fence will protect the Torrey's Milkvetch plant, which is not found anywhere in the world besides Mount Charleston, Meketi said. It is the host plant to the blue butterflies, which also are rare. Meketi said that by protecting the plant the butterflies will have a better chance of reproducing.
"We are really hoping to see a lot more this year," she said. "The larva is on the plant. It's microscopic. When you have low numbers and lose a couple, it has a big impact."
Meketi said many hikers step on the plant without realizing it and that the mountain loses many of the blue butterflies.
Although Get Outdoors Nevada will be putting up fences and interpretive signs along the Bristlecone trail, the blue butterflies can be seen in other areas. They are found at higher elevations in the 316,000-acre Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, and the host plant grows on rocky ridge tops.
Meketi said National Trails Day is a great way to get people out to hiking sites in their community.
Grady said Get Outdoors Nevada wanted 80 volunteers for their third National Trails Day and got 75 in the first month.
"It's a pretty amazing community, and the excitement of a national event really brings people out," she said.
The four federal land agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, have been working together since 1999 to develop collaborative programs and projects that enhance services to the public, improve the stewardship of federal lands and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their management activities.
The programs are funded by the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.
"A lot of folks want to support their public land, but don't come out unless there's an event," Grady said. "We like to get folks out from the community even if they are just walking the trails."
The American Hiking Society, a national nonprofit trail advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., has been organizing the nationwide National Trails Day on the first Saturday in June since 1993.
For more information, visit www.getoutdoorsnevada.org.
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