Ever wondered what it takes to reconstitute and epic big mountain trail system with sick vertical drop? Today, we're fortunate to have Nat Gordon, a board member of the volunteer-run Sonoran Desert Mountain Bikers (SDMB) organization on the show, to shed some light on their organization and their efforts to revive the trails on Mount Graham in South Eastern Arizona. Nat shares incredible insights into the hard work, engineering, and environmental considerations that go into trail restorations, and how the unique conditions of the Sonoran Desert add an extra layer of complexity.
The conversation doesn't stop at trail building. We also stir up discussions about the important initiatives at SDMB to foster diversity and inclusion within their ranks. Here’s a little teaser: They are on a mission to recruit more female board members! And yes, they speak about the irresistible lure of Mount Graham, the heart of their remarkable project. It's not just about mountain biking; we also hear about the exhilarating road riding opportunities that this mountain has to offer.
Towards the end, we steer the conversation to the responsible side of mountain biking. Nat enlightens us about SDMB's "be cool" trail safety initiatives, bike skills, and bike Academy program aimed at promoting inclusion and trail etiquette. We explore the vital role of volunteers in keeping the organization running smoothly, especially in the post-pandemic world. Lastly, we also touch upon the fascinating world of trail maintenance, the cowboy gate etiquette, and the somewhat cryptic art of securing funding for these activities. So, if you're a mountain biking enthusiast or simply love hearing about behind-the-scenes operations, you can't afford to miss this episode!
Sonoran Desert Mountain Bicyclists (SDMB) :
https://www.SDMB.org
Mount Graham Visitors Guide: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd1086012.pdf
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh (00:16):
Did you know that you can't run through a campsite?
I know I didn't know that youcan only ran because it's past
tense.
Mike (00:31):
He who's laughs last didn't get the joke that was.
That was a good one, josh, Ilike it.
So you know my son likesketchup, love's ketchup, eats it
and everything.
So today you'll.
You know he opens sometimes alittle like splatter a little
bit.
He got some in his eye.
Now he is hindsight.
Josh (00:47):
It was very good, thank you.
Mike (00:49):
Speaking of dad jokes, I want to give a shout out to
Kerry Demont.
Sent me this beautiful shirt.
I love it.
Get a lot of compliments when Iwear it in public dad jokes are
how I roll spell yeah.
Yeah, so thanks, kerry Demont.
Josh (01:02):
I didn't even pick up on the eye roll until right now.
That's awesome.
Yeah, all right.
So it is a what day?
Today's Tuesday.
Mike (01:11):
Still Tuesday yes, definitely.
Josh (01:14):
Tuesday here on the MCP and we've got a special guest
with us.
Mike (01:18):
Now it's thinking yeah this is Tuesday, tuesday yeah.
Josh (01:24):
So we've got a Nat Gordon with us from Sonoran Desert
Mountain bikers.
Mike (01:30):
Bicyclists.
Josh (01:31):
Sonoran Desert Mountain bicyclists.
So I'm going to read.
I'm going to read from yourwebsite yeah, real quick here.
So the Sonoran Desert Mountainbike list is a bicyclist, jesus
man.
Mike (01:41):
It's a volunteer, it's going to be a good one.
Josh (01:42):
Non-profit organization that devoted to the promotion of
the sport of mountain bikingand views the sport as a vehicle
to promote low impact outdoorrecreation, conservation and
might mountain bicyclingopportunities that are
environmentally and sociallyresponsible.
We were to build, maintain andprotect multi use single track
(02:04):
and mountain bike trail accessto the greater Tucson Arizona
region.
Nat (02:07):
Yeah, right, right, and it's SDMB dot org.
The only thing you might getmixed up with is San Diego
mountain bike association, butthat's SDMB.
Josh (02:17):
So keep off the a, drop the a.
Nobody wants to.
And you may be asking yourselfwhat is the Sonoran Desert?
So, from Wikipedia, the SonoranDesert is a desert in North
America and echo region thatcovers the Northwest Mexican
states of Sonora, bajaCalifornia, baja California, sir
, as well as as well as part ofthe Southwest United States.
(02:40):
It's the hottest desert in bothMexico and the United States.
It has an area of 260,000square kilometers.
The Sonoran Desert is withinthe Sonoran floristic province.
The desert contains a varietyof unique endemic plants and
animals, notably the saguaro andorgan pipe cactus.
You like organ pipes?
The Sonoran Desert iscompletely distinct from nearby
(03:04):
deserts because it providessubtropical warmth in winter and
two seasons of rainfall.
This creates an extremecontrast between aridity Did I
say that word right?
And moisture.
Nat (03:14):
Yeah, I'm going to give it to you, yeah yeah, that's right,
it's pretty good.
Mike (03:18):
It was excellent reading.
I don't read very much, yeah.
Josh (03:22):
All right, so go ahead and introduce yourself, nat.
Nat (03:24):
Yeah, I mean, we're literally feeling that amazing
contrast right now.
It's like 109 today and kind ofhumid.
Josh (03:31):
Yeah, that's special Kind of humans.
Like 30% humidity for us, yeah.
Nat (03:36):
Yeah, yeah.
So hey, thanks for having meguys.
Yeah, so I'm with SDMB, I'm aboard member there and my title
is the development andfundraising chair, but really we
just call it development now,because we I do help with the
fundraising or I apply for thegrants and so on, but I'm also
(03:59):
in the development role, forwardlooking.
So what does SDMB want to beRight?
What does our board want tolook like?
That's one of the missionswe've been on lately.
Sdmb has kind of been taggedwith being a bunch of old white
guys and we need some diversity.
We need some diversity and we'vebeen working on that and I've
been helping to recruit so andwe've been successful in that
(04:22):
and that's made our group moreinteresting, so I'm happy to
report that.
Josh (04:26):
Outstanding.
We have a pretty biglistenership from females, so I
hear that women, yeah, sdmb islooking for some diversity.
Nat (04:32):
Yes, yes, we're.
We continue to seek femaleboard members and we now have
four.
Josh (04:37):
So that's good.
Nat (04:38):
Yeah, right on, yeah yeah.
That's awesome, yeah, so that's.
That's one thing I've been upto.
Another thing is looking at howwe do business, how we even
things like membership software,like the tool that we have that
we're using, that you read thewebsite about.
I might get in trouble if thecompany hears me say this, but
we can cut this out.
It's bad, we're looking for abetter solution.
(05:01):
And this is kind of the thingwith being an all we're all
volunteers.
Nobody's getting paid.
I'm kind of paid executivedirector for a little bit a few
years ago and then that persondecided it wasn't a good use of
the company, of theorganization's money, so you
stopped drawing a salary, right,but anyways.
So I said, hey, let's get abetter membership software.
(05:21):
And if you say something thenit's like well, you got to go do
it.
Josh (05:24):
Like is a volunteer, is a volunteer.
Mike (05:26):
It's like, yeah, you gotta think about every idea.
Josh (05:30):
Hey, you know what we should do?
Oh wait, nevermind, nevermind.
No, I was, I was.
Nat (05:34):
So so I'm out procuring a nonprofit centric.
You know CRM, you know likeSalesforce for a nonprofit so we
can better members, bettermanage our partnerships, our
sponsors, our donors and do morewith less.
So that's one of the things I'mup to.
I think the reason I'm invitedhere is because I am leading a
(05:56):
project with an SDMB out onMount Graham and the Penelonios
Mountains which is in GrahamCounty.
About, depending where you areon the mountain is between an
hour and 45 and four hours, Iwould say, to get to deeper
parts of the mountain.
But most of it's most of wherewe would go to ride I would say
is about hour and 45.
Josh (06:17):
You're talking about from Tucson from Tucson.
Nat (06:19):
Sorry, yeah, yeah, good clarification.
Yeah, assuming we're leavingfrom Tucson, central Tucson.
Yeah, yeah, hour and 45 to likethree hours yeah.
Josh (06:29):
And if you're not familiar with my Graham, I've spent a
lot of time.
Lacey's family has a cabin upthere and they see my wife grew
up up there.
I spent a lot of time at MountGraham, actually named my son
Matthew Graham.
His middle name is after MountGraham.
Mike (06:40):
Yeah.
Josh (06:41):
After we backed away from naming him Hazard, matthew, we
were going to call him Hazmat.
Mike (06:44):
Uh-huh, that was the last minute Decisions to go with.
Josh (06:47):
Matthew Graham.
But in addition to the greatpotential for trail mountain
biking on Mount Graham, it hassome really unique road riding.
Sure, we were talking beforethe podcast started.
It's like Tour de France riding.
It's the kind of riding thatyou see on television.
It's the crazy, you know 180degree switchbacks, super steep,
(07:08):
paved good and very, verylittle traffic compared to like
what you'll see in Mount Lemmon.
So if you're a road rider andyou haven't been to Mount Graham
I know they do the Mount Grahamhill climb every year.
There's a lot of awesome roadriding, so bring your road bike
and your mountain bike, go visit.
Nat (07:22):
Mount Graham?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a 200 foot sustained climbfrom down at the general store
up to Shannon, I think it mightbe Just to Shannon, it might be.
Yeah, and then if you it's andyou can go up to Heliograph, if
you're willing to do the gravelgrind up to Heliograph, that's
another two miles and 900 feet.
So yeah, you're over.
(07:43):
You're over seven grandsustained yeah.
Josh (07:48):
It puts you in the hurt locker for sure.
Mike (07:51):
So on the website it mentions reopening the Mount
Graham trails.
What does that mean, reopening?
Nat (07:56):
Does that say that on our website?
Josh (07:58):
I don't know what website.
Mike (07:59):
you're referring to the SDMB as far as Bill, the main
train.
So this is one of thecommittees called trails love.
Oh, yeah, and it talks aboutBill, the maintained mountain
bike trails, the enchanted hills, explorer portal trails at
Kennedy park.
Reopening trails at MountGraham.
Nat (08:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So that is true.
I just didn't know that.
That said that I should knowthat.
Josh (08:21):
So you're a volunteer man, it's all good, yeah, right.
Nat (08:24):
Let's just back up on Mount Graham though.
So it is 10,700 feet.
It's high Salisvete elevation,and the Saford Hila Valley is
about 3,000.
It's 7,700 vertical feet.
It's the most prominentmountain in the state, even
though what is it?
Josh (08:38):
Humphries Peak up in Flag is higher, starting at a higher
elevation.
Nat (08:43):
And it's the largest of the Madrean Sky Islands, or tallest
, tallest, sorry, yeah, which isthis?
Josh (08:50):
You probably need to explain what a Sky Island is for
our listeners.
Nat (08:52):
Yeah, so am I going to see this right?
It's an archipelago, right?
So there are these scatteredmountains kind of in between the
Rockies.
Man, I'm going to get roastedif I get this wrong.
Mike (09:05):
Between the Rockies and the Sierra Madre of Mexico.
Nat (09:08):
And it's these, and they have such elevation that they
act as islands, because thestory with Mount Lemon or Mount
Graham is you can go from thisMexico type climate all the way
up to Canadian type climate inthe 6,000 feet of elevation
change.
Josh (09:24):
Yeah, I mean, we actually have a ski resort here in Tucson
the southern most ski resort inthe United States, which is
crazy.
People think about TucsonArizona.
You guys have a ski resortthere, yeah, and it's not the
best, but when you get two feetof powder, it's two feet of
powder.
That's what I say Absolutely.
Nat (09:39):
And like I did this winter in January, I rode prison camp
mountain bike loop in themorning and I went up and skied
in the afternoon.
Mike (09:45):
Perfect, no way.
Nat (09:46):
On the same mountain.
That's pretty cool.
Mike (09:50):
It's like a snow hike in your bike.
Oh yeah, on bugs.
Yeah, that's what it was.
That's pretty impressive.
Nat (09:55):
Yeah, so that's really cool .
So yeah, Graham is unique andif you it's a lot of it's burned
but there's a lot more intact,kind of big spruce forest up
there.
Josh (10:07):
Yeah, when was the fire?
They had a fire.
What was it?
Nat (10:10):
17.
Fried fire 17, 17.
And then I think it's 04, notall fire.
Those are the ones that reallykind of put this mountain in a
situation to go back to you,Mike, where trails needed to be
reopened.
Mike (10:22):
That's the most thing I've referenced to the fire probably
.
Nat (10:24):
Yeah.
So two big fires came throughand you need time to heal from
the burn scars, and then I wouldsay there were also challenges
in Plus.
It was hard to heal completelywhen it started fire.
Honestly, it looked quite likeit was going to begin trail
maintenance initiatives, right,whether it was volunteers coming
(10:47):
in or just the Forest Servicehaving the funds to do it, right
.
Josh (10:51):
So and it's a small community there.
It's not like Tucson, I thinklike the whole Hilo Valley is
like 30,000 people or somethingright, yeah, yeah, tucson's over
a million and I would say theamount of damage that was done.
Nat (11:01):
this is important.
The fire burns so hot in placeslike Grant Hill, which is up at
about 9,000 feet, which used tobe a mountain bike.
Josh (11:09):
Yup, yeah, like Grant Loop .
Yeah, we used to ride that allthe time.
Nat (11:11):
And Web Peak they had to bring in.
I was just told they had tobring in a special like severe
burn unit to evaluate with WebPeak to like both study and try
to assess what happened to theearth and the vegetation there
and the wildlife because itburns so bad.
Oh wow, I hadn't heard that,yeah, and then with that you've
just had horrific years ofblowdowns and deadfall.
(11:33):
Just keep coming and coming andcoming and they're honestly
finally just in some places likeArcadia Trail, just stabilizing
, starting to stabilize, so yeah.
And then to go back, like WebPeak and some of Grant Hill were
cleared out two years ago andbecause they've got so much
deadfall, it's like rows of deadlogs again that need 10
chainsaw, that's fun.
Mike (11:54):
Yeah, I would imagine some erosion happens as well because
of that.
Nat (11:57):
Oh yeah, there's blown out trails all over the mountain,
all kinds of stuff, yeah.
So an example.
We don't want to get too intothe weeds of this, but Arcadia
Trail, which is a nationalrecreation trail which we're
working to restore.
The corridor is open, but itdoes need improvement to get it
like more all abilities riding.
There you go, but at the bottomof that trail there used to be
(12:21):
kind of a gentle creek crossingand due to the burn and the
monsoon floods coming through,it's now a 60 foot chasm.
Wow, they had that.
Josh (12:30):
Oh, I didn't even realize.
I know exactly where you'retalking about.
Yeah, a wet canyon, a wetcanyon, okay, yeah no, it's like
a chasm.
And then my predecessor, EvanPilling, whom you may know, we
know Evan, or we know of Evan.
Nat (12:41):
Yeah, so Evan went through and led a state fire crew
through there and built areroute.
It's very.
I mean, he did the absolutebest with what's left of the
sides of that canyon becauseit's so steep.
But yeah, a reroute had to bebuilt in there when we first
started going in and working onArcadia Trail and I'll get into
the history here in a minute.
This will be a good segue.
Segways are great on the radio,right?
(13:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike (13:07):
We prefer awkward silences but, Segways will work today.
Nat (13:12):
Okay, well, I'm in development and this is some
process improvement.
Josh (13:16):
Yeah, right on, there you go.
Nat (13:19):
So yeah, when we first started going in there, it was a
straight up scramble into likea boulder field.
And then we had one of ourvolunteers from like Davis
Monthan, that knew how to runsome lines and ran a hand line.
So then we were like almostkind of repelling in a wet
canyon to get over and do trailwork and stuff.
Josh (13:37):
Wow, crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, dude, I gotta get up thereand check it out.
Man, I haven't been out thatfar in a while, interesting.
Mike (13:44):
So, like you mentioned, kind of get into maybe some of
what like an average day upthere looks like when you're
trying to build these trails andrework them.
Nat (13:55):
Okay, so it depends.
Right, it depends on the timeof year, what part of the
mountain we're working on andwhat the soil is like, and
there's a lot of variation.
Back to the sky island thing,right, and the lower reaches
it's about 5,000 feet, so it'skind of like High desert.
Yeah, Oracle, Reddington Molino, right, but it's rocky.
(14:20):
I'd say it's quite rocky.
There's a lot of decomposedgranite.
Josh (14:24):
So now we have to be careful.
We have an internationallistener base so they're not
gonna know like the local Tucsonlandmarks.
Yeah, to kind of try to explainthem a little bit.
Nat (14:31):
Okay, yeah, so it is a high desert, decomposed granite, so
a lot of rock.
So you're going out and tryingto fix braided, eroded trails
that have a lot of water comedown them and you've got to go
do a lot of rock work.
You've got or we've got.
Josh (14:49):
And it's interesting, you know, in the desert this is like
not loam, right, it's looseover hard and there's nowhere
for the water to go.
And a lot of times when itrains we get monsoon rains, we
get heavy rains that come reallyreally fast.
We get a ton of volume of waterthat comes down on the trail
really really quickly and thatwater is not able to like, the
ground, is not able to absorb it.
(15:10):
And if you have, specificallyif you have, a trail that wasn't
designed to deal with, likewatershed right, you get the
trails that make an excellentplace for the water to follow
and so, typical, they'll followthat line and then they can just
wash out In one monsoon rainyou can like wash out an entire
trail.
Nat (15:28):
Sure, thank you, josh, for giving that context.
Yeah, so they can become creeksright or water flows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it is allabout erosion control or coming
back, fixing that and try tocontinue to mitigate it.
So in the lower elevationswhich we try to work in the
cooler months, obviously it'sanything from like.
(15:49):
One example would be twoFebruary's ago we just moved a
section we have about 60 feet tokind of move within a corridor.
That's without an environmentalreview, and we moved a trail
over about 15 feet to an areabecause we're like the trails,
literally the drain.
Josh (16:06):
Now so let's let the drain be the drain.
Let's go build a new drain.
Nat (16:09):
We're gonna go uphill a little bit.
We're gonna build a newsmoother curve here and then but
we still had to, leading intoit, build these things called
check dams, which are basicallythese embedded rock water bars,
you know.
Mike (16:23):
So some engineering.
Nat (16:24):
At intervals.
Yeah, and that was a weekend ofworking on maybe 60 feet of
trail like eight people thewhole weekend.
So okay, so yeah slow work.
Josh (16:37):
Can you, if you're okay, can you dive a little bit into
check dam?
I've seen these.
I called them water bars, butI've seen these on the trails
and I don't fully understand,like why they were set up or
what they're used for.
Nat (16:46):
Can you help me understand that?
Yeah, so I'm not the superexpert on check dams, but as I
see them, it's in areas, andthere's actually a great video
series I can share with you thatthe Arizona Trail Association
put out, and it's called TrailSkills Essentials.
Josh (17:00):
Yeah, I think we talked about we had Matt Elsinan from
ATA, so I think Matt talkedabout that as well.
So we'll put that in the shownotes guys.
Nat (17:07):
And I think that was that's under their topic of, like more
advanced erosion control, andthat's essentially when you're
in a situation where you, asJosh you pointed out you can't
avoid the water flowing down it,so you've gotta build.
They're more or less like stepsthat try to slow it down.
Yeah, yeah, check dams, checkdams, yeah.
Josh (17:28):
And they're probably a foot and a half tall maybe so
it's almost like you're ridingdown.
When you're riding down, it'slike you're riding down stairs.
Nat (17:35):
Let me get a jump down.
We try to roll them as makethem as round as we can.
Josh (17:40):
That kind of defeats the purpose a little bit, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Nat (17:44):
Well, you've got hopefully some off camber water flow going
off when it gets up to it.
So then, yeah, not have it tooabrupt.
So yeah, those are check dams.
Mike (17:55):
So how did you learn about all the details, from check
dams to the 60 foot area thatyou mentioned, or?
Thank you, corridor, all thesedetails?
That must go into it that whenI'm writing I don't really
notice sure.
Nat (18:11):
So to go back, I was kind of an assistant trail
coordinator, crew leader for theMount Graham thing that SDMB
was doing.
Evan Pilling was the lead andEvans a professional trail
builder and also has had yearsof in years of experience
(18:32):
engaging the land managers.
Josh (18:34):
So so you're a apprentice under a master right, right,
right.
Nat (18:39):
I was very fortunate to imprentice under him and he was
very clear at letting everybodyknow when we're out on trail
like it's right or wrong.
We can move it.
We've got this much room.
You know, and in this area,that that whole scenario we're
talking about the check dams,the realignment, knowing we
could move it that far.
Learn that all from Evan himcascading down his both his
(18:59):
knowledge of construction andthe rules of engagement with the
plan manager.
Mike (19:05):
Very cool.
Yeah, so you spend a lot oftime working engineering
building trails.
Do you spend more time buildingtrails or writing?
Writing a bike nowadays?
Nat (19:16):
In general, or when I'm at my grand.
Josh (19:19):
No, it was interesting.
So I think part of why Mike'sasked this question is when we
had Tucker and Patrick on from.
Mike (19:26):
Angel fire.
Josh (19:27):
Tucker said I just fell in love with building trail, sure,
and and I'm almost more in lovewith the trail building that I
am with the riding he's likeI'll ride my bike to like test
out the jump that I just built,sure, and he asked him like what
kind of bike he has, and he washe didn't really even know.
Mike (19:42):
He was like I don't know it's still works.
Josh (19:46):
So he doesn't even like most mountain bikers.
You know like right you cantell you every single ounce of
water and whatever on their bike.
But he was like just a lover ofthe building process and
frankly he was the first personI've ever met that said that
most trail builders have met.
Are you know, bad ass?
Cyclists love cycling andthey're doing that passion, kind
of feed each other.
Where do you fall in thatspectrum?
Nat (20:06):
Great question.
So I don't consider myself atrail builder, totally like like
somebody at the gentlemanyou're talking about Angel fire
cuz like he's probably designingsomething and they're getting
the axe out there and doing itright.
I'm doing more restoration,right, but, but I do, there are
improvements.
I'm starting to dabble intomaybe what the what would be
(20:28):
considered construction likewhen I'm shaping some of these
corners.
But anyways, to answer yourquestion, I still very much love
riding.
I do ride less, but there's areason.
There's a benefit though, andit's not so like.
I love doing trail work, but Ifind that if I ride less, I and
(20:49):
like I found before I was doingtrail work, I was over riding
and it was becoming like kind ofa hamster wheel.
Josh (20:55):
I wasn't enjoying as much as riding, too much, you know it
was getting border trailssometimes you gotta take a break
, right, right, I know, right,when I leave my wife for a week
and I come back and like Ireally love you, yeah, yeah,
just just, just just kiddinglacy yeah, and and and part of
that was is like it was with.
Nat (21:12):
You know, we're all getting older here, right?
Mike (21:14):
and yeah, and we're not getting younger body break right
and in Duro.
Nat (21:18):
I'm kind of in in Duros, kind of my preference right, and
that does a number on yourjoints right.
Yeah, for sure, and so I waslike I gotta rest, I gotta
stretch, I gotta strength trainmore, but what I'm getting at
the trail, the trail work whichI didn't think because some of
it's been shoulder related andstuff it's actually been really
beneficial Just helping buildyour body.
(21:40):
For that, yeah, yeah and andand then yeah, it does kind of
give me this balance between,you know, working on trails and
then writing and reaping therewards.
Or also the thing I like themost like in our most recent
volunteer weekend was just thispast weekend is taking people
down the goods, you know yeah,and look what we did yeah,
sharing the stuff, like evenhiking out on the trail we just
(22:02):
work, is like shake trail weworked on this weekend.
We didn't.
We didn't ride that when wewrote a different trail.
Josh (22:06):
But people are just like so, like please with themselves
and Like seeing the finishproduct that's that if you guys
actually do that all the waydown out, that would be pretty
nuts alright.
So so we go all over on thispodcast.
Tons of rabbit holes.
Yeah, I think you were kind ofon a roll to kind of talk us
through your game plan and whatwas going on Mount Graham, and I
think we took you down somerabbit holes.
So maybe we could take you backto Mount Graham and like what's
(22:28):
your grand vision?
How's it going?
Sure, and then I think onething we want to highlight a
couple times in this podcast islike how can people volunteer?
Nat (22:35):
sure.
I appreciate that yeah yeah, sodo we want to do like my, like
origin story with Mount Grahamto kind of get?
Josh (22:41):
yeah, let's start with that man.
Nat (22:43):
That sounds good okay because it's kind of it's kind
of interesting and it's likeit's digitally documented, which
is kind of neat right in theOkay, right, so I don't know
what that means.
Josh (22:52):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah , we'll explain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out,it's out, okay, cool there's.
Nat (22:56):
There's a digital.
Yeah, there's a digital trail.
I don't know if it's blockchainor not, but there's a digital.
Yeah, you know, becauseblockchain you can't take back
right once it's out there yeah,yeah.
So, as I mentioned earlier, I'mnewer to Tucson.
I've lived here for about threeyears and you grew up where
(23:16):
Portland main.
Josh (23:17):
Portland.
Okay, right now, yeah, main,main, yeah different for the
original Portland.
I even know there was aPortland in Maine yeah, no, no
worries, it's the big city, yeah.
Mike (23:27):
Yeah, no, I just heard something about the real estate
in Portland main.
Nat (23:30):
I didn't realize it's kind of a hotspot it's a major
hotspot yeah, I know that yeahyeah, it's a very cool small
city in New England, super coolright on yeah, yeah, it's on the
ocean.
You're not far from hills andmountains.
Josh (23:45):
I mean, killing 10 is not that far from there.
Nat (23:47):
Right and get up yeah, killing 10 is like probably
three and a half hours, butwe've got our own mountain sugar
loaf.
Sunday river.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you knowthose ones yeah, so yeah, it's
an old, you know New Englandcity, so there's not a lot of
room for housing.
It's pretty dense, right.
That's why, and and it's gottenhip.
You know, people moving fromBoston, new York, wherever want
(24:09):
to go, live the good life, main,the way life should be.
That's their motto.
Mike (24:13):
So People are tapping that right right on yeah anyway.
Nat (24:16):
so yeah for Portland main originally.
But prior to living in southernArizona I was living, I lived
in the Bay Area, mostly inOakland, for about 15 years and
got into Trail kind of advocacyand volunteering with trail work
, with the Syrab you trailstewards and they're, they're
(24:39):
the, they're the guys that bringyou downyville and all that
kind of stuff, right?
Josh (24:44):
familiar with that.
Yeah, it's like the birthplace,but don't tell the Colorado
guys.
But yeah the birthplace ofmountain yeah.
Nat (24:51):
So downyville, there's a whole story there and this is
where I get inspired about it.
But there's a whole story withyou know, downyville, and that's
the Tahoe national force therethat sometime, and I believe was
maybe the 90s, they cut trailmaintenance funding or maybe the
early 2000s, and there werebusinesses shuttle businesses,
bike shops that relied on thisyep and the owners of those
(25:14):
businesses and the communitymembers got together and created
a stewardship and volunteertrails organization.
To pick up that man.
It's because it both createdjobs yeah, record, or created
jobs recreation and and it wasjust the right thing to do.
Why would you want to let thosetrails just disappear?
yeah yeah, so worked with them afew times a year and just love
(25:34):
their model and also love thatkind of big mountain Sierra
riding.
We get up there and do that abunch and, as I was, it was kind
of a deliberate move down.
To some we were wanting to getout of the bay and to some was
on our short list.
Loved Mount lemon had writtenhere a bunch, you know loved all
the trails in Tucson, love TMP.
But also was like poking aroundon the map Like what else is
(25:56):
out of there, what?
What's going to be my weekendtrips, right?
yeah and what's going to be myweekend trips, but also not flag
staff, because I know I'm goingto be competing with A thousand
other right, right, right sotwo places came up the panels
outside of globe.
Josh (26:10):
Yeah, trail forks, great I mean.
And actually, yeah, we had Matton, he was talking about some
of the like there is on a trailand like, yeah, some of the like
, the hidden gems on that trailyeah, you know in that direction
.
Mike (26:20):
so Just to back up, so you guys pick where you're going to
reside, live based on themountain biking.
Josh (26:28):
Well, how else would you find a house to live in?
Mike (26:31):
I don't know.
That's where you pick yourhouse location.
Josh (26:33):
My house has to be within the right distance of the
traditional that's what I'mhearing.
Nat (26:37):
Yeah, so there's a heavy weight bias on cycling.
Josh (26:40):
Yes, Very cool, yeah, yeah , is your partner right as well?
Nat (26:43):
She does More like like Hardtail Cross Country MTV and.
Josh (26:49):
Gravel and Road.
Nat (26:50):
Cool.
Mike (26:51):
Yeah.
Nat (26:51):
Yeah, yeah, but it's good.
Yeah, yeah, so, and she comesup in this trail work at Mount
Crown which is really cool.
Mike (26:56):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Nat (26:57):
Yeah, so, but I've been visiting Arizona and Tucson for
years and I just love the vibehere, you know, and there was
obviously, like you know, it's amountain city, it's got most of
the services, it's affordableand it's got, you know.
I mean to me like, if you'retalking about technical big
(27:18):
mountain riding, like MountLemmon is, it's it yeah.
Mike (27:21):
It's the corner of the breast.
Nat (27:22):
Yeah, it ranks with anywhere in the world, right.
Mike (27:24):
Yeah.
Nat (27:25):
And I was like I want to live near that, you know.
But I knew I kind of had riddenhere enough.
I'd been here three or fourtimes and I wanted to know what
other you know, rounding out myexperience, what would that be?
And then I said, like I said itwas like in the penals, saw
those on Trail Forks and I sawMount Graham and that those were
all marked on Trail Forks butthere was nothing behind, no
(27:46):
Strava, right, they were on theTrail Forks, you could click on
them.
There may be.
One guy was like yeah, thisthing burn.
I know what that was going onhere, but there was hardly
anything.
So it just curiosity got thebest me.
So I put something out on MTBR,which people used to use more
right the mountain bike forumthere, and just said, hey,
what's going on?
Mount Graham?
Anybody in the Arizona forum,anybody know?
(28:07):
Is there a trail advocacy groupout there?
Like there's, there's five miletrails with like 4,000 feet of
ascending.
That place has got to beawesome.
What's going on?
Josh (28:14):
Right.
Nat (28:15):
And nobody came back at first.
And then I went back again andsome guy from Phoenix came back
and was like yeah, burn man,Like there's no organization out
there and it burned really bad,so we don't know what's going
on, right.
And it's going to need time toheal.
So we move here in September of2020, during the kind of high
(28:38):
to the pandemic.
Mike (28:39):
Right.
Nat (28:40):
And I'm like, hey, let's head out to Mount Graham in
October, go see the fall colorsand see what's going on with
these trails.
Yeah, so we roll out there andorchard.
Yeah, yeah, we.
I don't think they were open.
I think we went on a Sunday.
I don't think they were.
Josh (28:54):
Yeah, yeah.
Nat (28:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, but yeah.
So we rolled up and I tried toride Arcadia and I got like a
mile into it and it had a numberof like 24 inch down trees
diameter and literally sapling,aspen saplings like growing in
(29:15):
the middle, in the middle of thetrail.
Josh (29:16):
Yeah.
Nat (29:16):
Yeah.
Josh (29:19):
Oh, where it's beer time, he wants an IPA.
Yeah, yeah, thank you Sorry,you want me to go get you on
while we're no, no, no, no,we're good, we're good.
Nat (29:27):
I am not looking a gift horse in a gift horse in the
mouth.
Mike (29:31):
I don't want to be associated with that.
Nat (29:32):
Thank you, mike.
Yes, so try to do that.
And what was funny, like thisis so futile.
I had like my little hands onwith me.
I cut it on a couple ofsaplings.
Josh (29:42):
Did something.
Nat (29:43):
Chuck them out of the way.
Josh (29:44):
Cool.
Nat (29:45):
I'm going to come back, man , yeah, so rolled out of there
and then went down and tried toride up or ladybug, I know
you're.
So another trail on themountain that looked like it
might be a good mountain biketrail, yep, and people had
ridden these.
There was a little bit of betathat people had ridden Yep Out
there on the interwebs got downthat one ridiculously short
(30:08):
switchbacks, ones that you wouldjust want to ride down the
middle.
And then, yeah, that situationwas scrub oak growing right into
the middle of the tread.
So I hiked back up it both,both situations.
I hiked back up the trail.
Josh (30:19):
Never made it down to the bottom.
Nat (30:20):
Never made it down to the bottom, so get back to home base
and go on a local Facebookgroup here to some mountain bike
conditions.
Yep, Put out a post.
Hey went out to Mount Graham.
Here's what I saw.
What's up.
And then that led me to SDMBand Evan.
And Evan was like hey, I'veactually been thinking and
talking to the Coronado Safradistrict about getting a
(30:42):
volunteer agreement.
But my thing is, his thing wasI need people to actually be
interested to support it.
And what happened from there isI was like I'm all in and other
people said they wereinterested, had ridden there 20
years ago, and Evan went and gota volunteer agreement of the
forest and like two weeks theyturned it around.
So we.
Mike (31:02):
This is how they were hungry for help.
Josh (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, yes, and that was laid off.
Nat (31:09):
I don't know third week of October 2020, and we were out
there working second week inDecember.
Mike (31:13):
Nice.
Nat (31:14):
Super drought year so we were able to actually work lower
Arcadia in.
Josh (31:19):
Yeah, it's typically the mountain.
Nat (31:20):
Yeah.
Josh (31:21):
So you know, in Southern Arizona we have eight months of
awesome weather, we have fourmonths of awful weather.
That awful weather is here inthe summer and really we just go
ride at five in the morning ora good do a night ride and it's
okay.
Just in the day you don't ride.
You're going to be going toscorch yourself.
But it's unusual to be able togo up that high on Moncram in
December because there'ssnowpack basically.
Nat (31:42):
Yeah, exactly right.
So it was a dry year.
It was still cold, but duringthe day, because of the Arizona
sun at elevation, even in thewinter is still pretty warm,
even though it's 45 or 50 feelswarmer than that.
And that trail is mostly Eastfacing so you're right, in that
morning afternoon sun.
So we worked out there allwinter and I can show you guys
(32:04):
pictures.
But the trail was completelygrown in, like you know,
manzanita oak.
Josh (32:11):
What was this trail?
You said this, but I forgot.
Nat (32:12):
Sorry, this is Arcadia.
Josh (32:13):
Arcadia.
Nat (32:14):
Okay and fully, you know fully grown in.
So we went in and brushed itout over a few months and then
and you're starting at Arcadiaworking up to Shannon, or what
were you doing?
Exactly Starting at Arcadia,working up to Shannon with the
goal of clear, brushing out thewhole corridor and then getting
into tread work, and we're doingsome of that too, so okay, so
(32:34):
can you explain the differencebetween brushing and tread work?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So brushing is the removal ofvegetation from the trail and
the standard is a six footcorridor which we usually
measure by just putting yourarms length out as far as you
can.
So you want to get the brushback to there.
(32:55):
I guess there's.
There's also a horse standard,10 feet high, If there's horse
traffic or use on the trail too.
Mike (33:00):
Right, Because you want them to be able to clear it.
Nat (33:02):
So how does brushing work?
You could be taking pruners,hand saws, chainsaws, getting
all that stuff out and thentread.
Work is tread is the trail thatyou're actually working on.
I think most people are used toworking, walking on trails that
(33:22):
have a pretty good bench tothem, pretty good grade, pretty
level, not too lumpy, beaten inpretty well, so they don't think
about it.
But when trails have not beenused for a long time or have
suffered a burn or a lot oferosion, they become lumpy.
They can even be gone.
They could just slide off thehill and you got to dig back
into the slope and reestablishit.
Mike (33:41):
Yep.
Nat (33:42):
So that tread work would be taking tools to dig back to the
proper standards of tread.
Yeah, we're back on tread work.
So that was tread work andbrushing.
So I guess we need to continueon with what's been going on
with Mount Cram.
So yeah, we've had volunteerweekends and events since
(34:03):
December of 2020.
And it's now what?
July of 2023.
Mike (34:08):
It's a lot of volunteer hours.
Josh (34:09):
So let me ask you this Are all your volunteers coming out
from Tucson and Phoenix, or doyou have volunteers that are
coming from the Gila Valleythere?
Nat (34:18):
The majority are from Tucson.
We have a couple guys or a fewpeople from Phoenix, the Valley
right Yep.
Josh (34:26):
The Phoenix Valley.
Nat (34:27):
Yep, we have a.
We do have a few from Safford,heela Valley too.
Josh (34:35):
Okay, cool.
Nat (34:36):
But it all depends.
Not everyone's there everyweekend, right, yeah, yeah, but
I would say probably 80% Tucson,10% Phoenix 10%.
Josh (34:47):
Safford 10%.
Nat (34:48):
Heela Safford.
Josh (34:49):
And do you have a relationship Like the end of the
day of a bike shop down therenext to the ACE hardware in
Safford?
Nat (34:53):
I've talked to that guy.
I can't remember his name.
It's called Hot Wheels, isn'tit?
I think?
Josh (34:58):
It might be, I don't know.
Nat (34:59):
I talked to that guy.
I randomly called him and hegot me in touch with a guy that
now does trail work with us.
So that was cool.
Josh (35:05):
Yeah right on.
Nat (35:06):
Yeah, and I'm also in touch with the Heela Valley Chamber
of Commerce cause they'reinterested in promoting the
mountain and the recreationthere.
Josh (35:13):
So we have a lot of like connections into the community
there.
So maybe we can leverage thoseconnections, see if we can like
dig up some more mountain bikers, cause I can tell you that like
a lot of the folks that wetalked to.
I don't think they know what'sgoing on.
Nat (35:25):
Yeah, I sense that too.
There's a little bit of it.
But yeah, anything you could doto connect us with more peeps,
we'd love that.
Josh (35:33):
Yeah, for sure.
Nat (35:35):
And ultimately our goal is to establish and it doesn't have
to be mountain biker centric-it's better.
Josh (35:43):
If it's not actually right , Much better.
Yeah, More users.
Nat (35:46):
Because, in reality, mountain bikers are not the
majority users.
Josh (35:51):
Not a mountain.
Nat (35:52):
For sure.
Yeah, by a long shot.
We would like to help incubateand develop and even equip and
whether that's a tool cache thatthe Forest Service provides or
whatever, get a local crew andstaff are going, because they
would just have more flexibility, because there's 30 minutes
from the mountain instead.
Mike (36:11):
And turn it over to them for some maintenance.
Nat (36:14):
Yeah, yeah, plugment Ideally, yeah, yeah, and you
know we still want to be a partof it, but ideally it should be
owned there and run there, yeah.
Mike (36:23):
So you're going on three years now on this project.
That sounds like, if I did themath right, you're correct.
Yeah, so what kind of progresshave you made?
How many miles, I guess Sureand trails.
And then where are you going inthe next near term?
Nat (36:38):
Sure, good question.
So we're three years into it.
But what's interesting abouttrails, right is that.
And it's been interestingweather since this project has
started.
So we went from the worstdrought in the history of
Arizona, the driest year, to thewettest.
Josh (36:53):
We had a 50 year monsoon.
Nat (36:55):
And then another really good one, and then an epic
winter right.
Josh (37:00):
So you're redoing.
Nat (37:00):
So that's if you want to talk about one of that, my real
issue, the biggest pains ofbeing a trail person is watching
it grow back in or blow out andyou're like I do oh, we just
did that.
And you're out there withsomeone like you put we did it,
we did it.
Josh (37:17):
I swear we worked on it so .
Nat (37:21):
So two things right.
Use is work is what I'm goingto say in response to that.
So Mount Graham doesn't get aton of use.
Josh (37:30):
And use actually helps bed the trail in and establish the
trail and stop the vegetation,exactly Feet beating the trail
right.
Nat (37:38):
So I got kind of asymmetric in my approach.
I was more like mountain bikecentric, just updating trail
forks.
But now I'm out there going tohigh KZ, all trails Like I'm all
in all fours.
Josh (37:48):
We're trying to get the word out so people use the
trails that should we all bringfat bikes out there or something
to kind of like yeah.
Nat (37:54):
Yeah, bring a 250.
Josh (37:55):
Wrap it out.
Nat (37:57):
Yeah, I'm going to jail.
Josh (37:59):
Do not do that.
Those are not allowed.
Yeah, yeah, this is a safford.
Do not bring your motorcycleright onto the trails.
Nat (38:06):
I'm being encourageable.
Josh (38:08):
But you can have a fat bike with a mechanical no engine
.
Nat (38:17):
So we've made great progress, but because of our
ability to keep up with thescale of the project, there's
been setbacks right.
So to give you an idea, though,what we're focused on is a
flagship route called the grahamcracker.
Mike (38:36):
Yeah.
Josh (38:36):
So both the stars, it's like the lemon drop, same
concept.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ihaven't heard that term, but it
makes it all in a sense.
Nat (38:42):
To me that's a great name, so it's on brand with Mount
Lemmon in the Southern Arizonatradition of, and we're even
going to try to tie in with likelemma, like merengue, right,
because there's that right ontop of lemon right.
So we've also kind of developedsomething in the spirit of that.
But so the graham cracker isthe flagship route and what that
is is that is a shuttle runfrom.
(39:03):
You'll get dropped off atShannon Campground and you will
ride Arcadia Trail down toArcadia Campground.
You will climb up to TurkeyFlat, you will take Turkey Flat
connector.
Josh (39:14):
How the hell you climbing to Turkey Flat from oh shit on
the road From.
Nat (39:18):
Arcadia on the road.
Josh (39:18):
On the road.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Nat (39:19):
Yep, so you climb on the road to Turkey Flat.
Josh (39:23):
Which is not that far.
It's like a couple miles,couple miles, a couple, two,
three miles.
Nat (39:27):
No, there's not much.
That's probably the.
There's a, yeah, there's maybe.
Out of this 70 mile route I'mabout to lay out, there's maybe
three miles of road connection.
There you go.
So get up to Turkey Flat.
That's a little steep, it's abit of hike a bike it's, but
pedal to it's not as hard asmost of the hike a bikes that
most people in Tucson know.
(39:47):
So that's good.
And then you get up on Ladybug.
Josh (39:53):
So you're riding from Turkey Flat up the road, up the
trail, to Ladybug.
Nat (39:57):
Yep, and then you go downhill Because we don't upper.
Ladybug is has a lot ofsections that just aren't
favorable to mountain biking andwould need some.
Josh (40:06):
I have tried to ride those .
Those switchbacks are like,yeah, they're beyond my skill
level.
Nat (40:11):
And I've had some people call me out and be like no dude,
it's rideable and I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, For a select few
humans.
Josh (40:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nat (40:17):
Yeah, but.
But you know the right bang forthe buck.
Josh (40:21):
And the price of failure is pretty rough up there too.
Nat (40:23):
If you, if you go off, so you head down toward what is
called angle orchard, which isthe orchard you spoke of earlier
.
Mike (40:29):
Yep.
Nat (40:29):
So so let's just back up.
So you've gone from Shannon toArcadia, so you've dropped five
miles and 2700 vertical feet,and then you get up to Ladybug
and you're going to drop anotherfour and a half miles and 2800
feet Down to Engels, down toEngel, orchard, and then I've
got a little kind of reverselollipop thing in the round the
(40:50):
mountain and creek complex there, and that adds another 1200
foot of drop.
So the route is 17 miles with2600 feet of climbing and 6300
feet of descending.
Mike (41:00):
It sounds like an awesome trail.
Nat (41:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's like it's a thing, yeah it's a thing.
Mike (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's a thing.
So what kind of ETA do you haveon this?
Nat (41:12):
I mean.
So here's what's amazing.
Back to the.
I think we talked earlier.
Josh (41:15):
You could do it now, right ?
It's, I mean it's rideable, nowit's rideable.
Nat (41:18):
now it's rideable but it's rough, it's advanced, it's back
country, it's rustic, right yeah, and there's variations Like
Arcadia is an easier trail thanLadybug but it's got more
overgrowth and kind of hiddenstuff under the overgrowth.
Ladybug is outright moretechnical, but it's more clear,
(41:39):
it's more open, you've gotbetter visibility, and then the
lower around the mountain stuffis actually in really good shape
.
Well, I've got crews goingthrough there right now.
We'll get to that, but that'sjust got great kind of classic
upper intermediate flow in myopinion.
Yeah so, and then there's oneother version which adds another
trail off of Heliograph Peakcalled Heliograph Trail, which
(41:59):
is above Shannon Campground, andthat adds another 400 feet of
no, no, no, that's another 900feet of climbing.
Josh (42:09):
So you'd climb up the service road, basically, or you
can't drive up there.
Nat (42:12):
Right, exactly.
So you get dropped off nearShannon Campground at the
Heliograph Road.
You'd climb up there.
You top out at 10,080 feet.
Josh (42:21):
Yeah, it's super cool views up there too.
Yeah, so high 10,080 feet.
Nat (42:25):
There's a fire tower up there, some old Forest Service
cabins, unbelievable views.
So with that route which iscalled S'mores, and that's
because it's a pun on GrahamCracker, but also because it's
some more climbing anddescending.
Mike (42:40):
Some more.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nat (42:42):
So S'mores is that route is 19 miles or 19 and 1 half, and
I think it's 30, 3,500 feet ofclimbing and 7,000 feet of
descending.
Damn.
Mike (42:56):
Wow.
Nat (42:56):
Yeah, with a shuttle, yeah.
Josh (42:58):
With a shuttle.
Yeah, yeah.
Mike (43:00):
So how many total miles of trail are up there?
Up there A lot.
Nat (43:06):
There's probably over 50.
But we're kind of in this offthe Mount Graham Highway which
is called the Swift Highway mainaccess point.
We're kind of really tied intothat.
We're trying to do the mostkind of like.
Josh (43:18):
So you can shuttle, yeah, shuttle, easy logistics and
there's a lot of spots wherepeople can jump in in different
areas there.
Nat (43:22):
Right, yeah, these can be three different rides.
Yeah, you don't have to do thismassive thing.
And then there's another trailwe're working on the backside,
which is Shake, which is alonger shuttle.
That's probably an hour shuttlearound, but that's a 5 mile
3,000 foot descent.
It ends in a campground, it's.
Josh (43:40):
Fort Grant right, Doesn't it end down in Fort?
Nat (43:42):
Grant Stockton Passes.
Josh (43:43):
Stockton Pass.
Nat (43:44):
Stockton Pass is named the campground, so the logistics are
a little tougher on that one.
But you have to go around thebackside of the mountain, you
have to go around the backsideof the mountain.
But what we're going to belooking at when we're kind of
get through some of the workthat's coming up, that's being
done with both crews and our ownwork, is that we'll be aiming
to, you know, sponsor shuttledays, so you don't have to deal
(44:07):
with that.
so oh, that's interesting, soyou go out you go out and you
know, maybe one day, in one day,you absolutely could do the
graham cracker or s'mores.
So you and and then Add onshake and you'd have a 10,000
foot descending day.
Mike (44:25):
Wow, it's a good day yeah.
Josh (44:27):
Yeah, cuz it, can you get picked up at angles, orchard,
and then just drive you back upto to ladybug and you can jump
on shake right there.
Nat (44:33):
Right, I have the van come around and meet you.
Yeah, and the reasons it shakes, shake rides.
Well, so it does.
It ends up in a more remoteplace, but it's a good trail.
So you know, and it's a 3,000foot descent.
Mike (44:49):
Huh, interesting, so, oh.
So what is on the horizon?
As far as you mentioned, youhave some crews helping clear
all this and the next steps.
So Every time you go out,you've got like what kind of
crew?
How many people out therehelping you out?
Nat (45:05):
Yeah, so We've had a number of weekends this summer.
I guess we've been doing themsince well, actually spring
through summer, but I really gotramped up kind of marketing
them more to the public insummer.
So we've had Memorial day, wehad one in June, we just had one
in mid-July and we're gonnahave one in mid-August and then
early September.
So all of those have hadbetween like 10 and 15 people.
Mike (45:28):
There's still room for more help, though, if people
want to sign up.
Nat (45:31):
That's true, absolutely, and you don't you know?
You can actually go out toMount Graham for one night if
you want to.
You could go out for the day.
A day is actually doable, it'sa, it's a pole.
But if you don't have a wholeweekend, you want to go for one
overnight, or come on, do it.
We always provide free campingand we work like, like this
weekend we were gonna be atArcadia campground, which was
(45:52):
gonna be probably in the 90sbecause of this heat wave, oh
yeah so we moved it up toShannon, up to 8900 feet,
because we want.
You know, we want this to be funand we want you to be like okay
, I'm gonna go out there, I'mgonna get out of the heat and
I'm gonna get to do some trailwork and I get to do some riding
and we always ride too it's notjust like we beat you down out
there.
So those are SDMB Leadvolunteer weekends.
(46:15):
But what we've also got goingon is the Forest Service has
funds to recover from the firefry fire and they are allocating
a Variety of resources to gettrails open to do the work.
That's just too big for us andtry to get to a level set.
The idea is here that we getthe trails to a level set so
(46:36):
volunteers, a mix of volunteersand resources from the forest,
can keep up with the maintenancehere over here, so you don't
have the degradation of qualityright.
So what's going on right now,which has happened quite
recently, like just this lastweek, I ended up staying, I did
a volunteer weekend this weekendand then I stayed on Monday to
meet with Some state fire crewsthat had been allocated with
(46:58):
some of this money for the fryfire recovery.
So there's there's 40 peopleout working on the mountain
right now opening up every daythree, three-twelfths a week
twelve a week.
Three twelve is a week.
They're camped out.
Mike (47:15):
Yeah, and it's just for the, the trails that you guys
are working on.
Nat (47:19):
That's in the restoration from the fire so there's a mix
like Arcadia trail they can'twork on because of wildlife
spotted our restrictions Right.
Ladybug is out of the burn scar, so it doesn't count and that's
kind of our baby We've adoptedthat.
It's in good enough shape.
We really don't need crews togo through there.
(47:39):
So then, because this isn't justMount Graham's restoration,
isn't all just about mountainbiking, arrest in DMP or Nat's
wishes, like yeah, we want themountain to be open because it's
important, it's a great placeto go and people miss it so,
like when we had the ability tokind of influence the direction
of these crews, we took feedbackfrom the community and they're
(48:02):
opening web peak loop, which isa trail that's been was severely
burned and has been very hardto keep open.
They just got that cleared outand a section of Ash Creek and
then they're gonna work on whatwe spoke about earlier, the
Grand Hill loops.
Those are not things SDM be issuper focused on now, but they
have value Because when you'reon the upper mountain as just a
few weeks ago, before thesecrews started working, there
(48:23):
weren't many places you could goon a contiguous, short fun hike
without tons of deadfall.
Josh (48:30):
Yeah, and if you go, and if you, if you have bros that
like can't ride the downhillstuff, I just put them on
Grant's loop, right, and theycan like do circles for an hour
and come pick you up at down atAngles Orcher right, right,
exactly, and so We've got crewsworking on that and then in the
fall when the restrictions lift,then we will be getting some
contracted Non-profit resources.
Nat (48:53):
So not government trail crews, but also not for profit,
because the Forest Service hasrules.
You most of the trip.
They either have to be, in Mostcases, government agencies or
pre-approved nonprofits to dothe trail work.
Mike (49:05):
I didn't realize how much coordination really is involved
with these projects, fromgovernment entities to Managing.
Josh (49:12):
This is what I was like when we were talking to Patrick
and Tucker and they're like hey.
This is private land.
We can decide in the morningwhat we want to do in the
afternoon.
Yeah, that can be months andmonths.
Yeah get approval for it.
For it on public land.
Nat (49:26):
Yeah, exactly, and we.
There's also some level ofunpredictability as to when
we'll get the crews, because thetype of work we're having them
do, which is restoration, sothere's a.
There had been some money thatwas allocated to the state crews
to do the restoration, but thenthey were moved off.
They were working on there twoyears ago, then they were moved
off to do thinning work becausethere was more of a demand of
(49:46):
that right.
Josh (49:46):
So what's what's thinning work?
Nat (49:49):
Yeah, thinning work would be going out.
It's proactive versus reactive,so fire management fire
management.
So making sure if there's toomuch fuel which is downed, wood
and debris, you got to get thatout of there and you got to
create these piles that willthat they'll do prescribe
burning on, so they're going outand doing that.
Very cool.
Mike (50:07):
So switching gears a little bit, but related to what
we were talking about here is onSDMB's website.
It talks about and you alludedto this the diversity and
inclusion and this is one of the.
On the outreach committeethere's a call out for folks to
help out on the four differentcommittees.
Sure, and I was.
I was really struck by this.
I like this with.
(50:28):
You're trying to diversify themembership which you talked
about, and it make mountainbiking more attractive To a wide
range of groups.
Yes young people physicallychallenge minorities, special
needs, and then also engaginglike urban youth.
The one that comes to mind islike the hundred acre wood park
in Tucson really cool Handcycle,underserved audiences.
Nat (50:52):
Yeah.
Mike (50:52):
I mean the full gamut that you guys are Trying to
accomplish here is reallycommendable and I think it make
a bit, yeah, make a bigdifference in the community just
on two, you know two wheels.
But it does take, you know,well-designed trails to like
that mentions to attract bothbeginners, intermediate and
advanced riders.
Yep, and I would think that's achallenge you know.
(51:16):
Talk about the coordination bigmountain.
Yeah you know, but but havingsomething for everybody.
So I don't know if you have anythoughts on on that part of the
.
You know the SDMB's mission andthat, but it's pretty cool.
Nat (51:28):
No, no, no.
Thanks for bringing it up.
And and I do, I'm I actually.
You know the way I'm going onabout Mount Graham.
You would think it's just allbig mountain and Dura, mount
Graham.
But that's just one part ofwhat I do and obviously just one
part of SDMB.
And, yeah, I have been involvedin the outreach, diversity and
inclusion committee.
(51:49):
Most of our committees kind offell apart during the pandemic.
So that is one thing I wouldsay, if I may plug while I'm on
here, is we need help on thecommittees.
They fell apart during thepandemic because it was just
hard to get people toparticipate and we need to
rebuild them because we're allvolunteers and the board members
can't do the lift on their own.
So Go to our website.
(52:10):
There's a blog post about thecommittees.
There's a plea to please comehelp us check that out.
Before the committees had kindof Suffered the impacts of COVID
, I had gone on to an outreachdiversity, inclusion committee
meeting and you, yeah, to givethat a little, give you a little
more insight on that.
It was Much like we said.
(52:31):
Our board didn't look like thecommunity.
It's like mountain bikingdoesn't look like the community
right and like there's the samekind of people are riding
mountain bikes.
So how do we do that?
But I thought the thing I likedabout being in that committee
was how do we do that and it notseem contrived or gimmicky?
Right yeah, right.
So it's gotta be genuine right,and that's through recruitment
(52:51):
of folks that you know Do havethe ability to reach folks that
may traditionally not beinvolved or interested in
mountain biking or have accessor whatever.
So we're working.
We've when we had the committeeup and running and we're
rebuilding it.
Now we have folks on thecommittee that are doing that
and we're going out and saying,hey, how can we?
(53:13):
You know, what do you thinkwill interest people that are in
your community or you think areunderserved, and how can we
reach them?
And it may not even be, it maynot even be mountain biking as a
gateway, it may be partneringwith other groups and saying
let's just get into cycling andtry to work with them and Then
invite them for mountain bikingwhen they get more interest.
(53:33):
Right, like so we're thinkingthrough things like that.
One of the things we've done issubsidized mountain bike
instruction, which we think isimproving access.
So I don't know if you've seen,we've been doing beginner
clinics lately, yeah, the bikeskills and a bike Academy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we've been doing that.
So, kent from our board megakudos to him.
That was his idea and that'sbeen like a smash hit right,
(53:54):
nice, you know what's that getthem hooked young?
Yeah, exactly, and it's been,it's been all, it's been all
ages.
I will actually take that back.
I think it is like 12 and up.
So we haven't done youth campsyet, but but we have a.
You know, we have a goodrelationship with El Grupo and
they do stuff like that, yepyeah so Can you?
Can you give me back on topichere?
Josh (54:15):
No, no okay, let me just.
Let me just dive down for asecond.
So so I Think we have somefolks that have been guests that
might be able to help you withthat objective, that have kind
of like their own organizationsin Tucson that are diverse, and
I'm thinking like genuine BMX,and then I'm thinking about ride
Tucson and Jesus from rideTucson.
(54:36):
Yeah so maybe there's somerelationships and maybe we can
plug.
If you guys aren't aren'talready plugged into those guys,
we can help you guys getplugged in and maybe help with
that objective.
Nat (54:43):
Yeah, I feel like everybody knows everybody, but we may not
be asking the right questionfor that particular purpose
right yeah.
Yeah, so that's awesome.
Yeah, and the, and that's thething.
Like you don't have to join theboard, you don't have to give
up your life.
Could you come to a couplecommittee meetings and give us
feedback or guide us if you wantto be on the committee long
term?
Cool.
If not just give us yourthoughts?
Josh (55:05):
How many members do you guys have right now?
Do you know Roughly?
Mike (55:08):
300 ish, Wow yeah it's a big organization, yeah, and the
other part of that on thecommittee is the advocacy.
Yes which I think goeshand-in-hand with what you just
mentioned, sure, and we talkedabout like strategies,
implements, way to promotemountain biking and trails and
and that, and can you talk to usa little bit about where, like
the be cool trail safety andetiquette initiatives?
Nat (55:31):
Yeah, sure, that's been a long-standing campaign of SDM
bees it is.
You know, be cool is the slogan, but I think it's the way I
take it is treat others how youwould want to be treated right
and if you had a mountain bikebarreling down at you and, you
know, buzzed you.
No one wants to be treated thatway.
Josh (55:53):
You're not gonna like the next mountain bike, you see
right, right and and behind.
Nat (55:57):
That is the way we talk about be cool, and the bike
ambassadors are.
We can talk about that too,they're kind of an offshoot of
that.
Yeah that's a newer program, butit's.
It's about Good etiquette, goodbehavior, being cool, right,
yeah, and being a good rolemodel.
Like, hey, mountain bikers slowdown for me, you know, like
(56:18):
they were considerate, they'dyou know, and they do trail work
, like they're promoting thepositive aspects of mountain
biking and and reminding peoplethat they have a Responsibility
on how to behave on the trail.
So we continue to maintain ourgood partnership with the land
managers and fellow users.
Yeah, and I would say, be cool.
Even applies to, you know,don't cut a cattle gate.
Josh (56:41):
Stuff like that, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah for ourlisteners.
What's a cattle gate?
Nat (56:46):
It's a well here that you guys I'm.
I'm not from the Southwest, butthey're called cowboy gates,
right, the ones that are made oflike the sticks and barbed wire
, and essentially they're a Agate that it's pulled over a
section of trail to prevent thecows from getting through.
Mike (57:00):
Yeah, because we have open grazing on some of the yeah the
trailer in some cases will cometo a to a to a to a gate.
Josh (57:06):
That's just basically barbed wire and they'll be like
kind of a it's.
It's a little like I don't knowa rinky-dinky, the way that it
connects, but you have to unhookit, pull it aside, get your
bike through and like, and itcan be a you know.
Mike (57:19):
Close it in five minutes but like you know.
Josh (57:20):
Yeah, open it, Don't damage it.
Yeah, put it back the way youfound it, because it's there for
a reason right, yeah they're.
Nat (57:27):
I mean they're complex right to the new.
If you're not familiar withthem because you got to kind of
stretch this barbed wire, maybeyou know I might might get cut
trying to do that.
But in general, if you'repatient and take the time you
can figure it out.
Yeah, I think it's a next it'sit's one thing to leave it open
because you couldn't figure outor you didn't want to deal with
it.
It's another to just cut itright.
(57:47):
Yeah, don't cut it right.
So yeah that.
That cutting the the cattlegates being uncool, yeah, being
uncool right on.
Mike (57:56):
Favorite part that I have to share on the website was the
compensation.
Nat (58:01):
Oh, yeah, that's a good one .
Mike (58:02):
Yeah, it is the pay, Knowing that you are making to
sound a better place to ride,priceless yeah.
Nat (58:10):
I, I agree with that.
So, yeah, none of us get paid.
Folks work hard, they.
They give a lot of.
I mean, I like on a MountGraham weekend I have people we
tend not to haul the trailerbecause it's just that road
unless you got to bring it.
You don't want to bring thetrailer right.
So, we load up tools in people'scars.
I've got a Compact SUV.
(58:32):
I can get some tools in there.
When we get a bigger crew, Ineed somebody to come by with a
truck.
So people come by with a truck,they load up the easy up, they
load up the tools, they load upthe cooler, like they're making
time right.
And then even people whenthey're out there, because we
want to take care of thevolunteers, especially the
newbies, we're out thereshuttling them, you know.
So there's there's a lot of workor people going up and setting
(58:53):
up the be cool, the be cooltrailer oh, sorry, the be cool
10 at the trail had to to letusers know that mountain bikes,
mountain bikers, want to be aPositive influence on trail use
and tell people about rules ofthe trails.
Another thing would be our bikeambassadors, which is that
programs about two years old now.
So we have.
It's not a patrol, it's justWell, it's a patrol but it's an
(59:15):
enforcement right.
So there's no, you know they'rejust out there to make sure
People know to be cool, aren'tlost If they need directions,
need help, something like that,and also just to kind of keep an
eye on Trail conditions.
Josh (59:29):
They're looking out for the trail, looking out for the
users, exactly.
Nat (59:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah and and yeah.
And trying to like, smile, befriendly, get people stoked, you
know yeah, yeah, how does, howdo you become a trail ambassador
?
You just send an email toPresident at SDM, be do or G,
and you say I'm interested inbeing a trail ambassador and you
(59:53):
will be engaged.
Cool, yeah, you, I mean you'vegot to go through the process,
which?
Is like where do you want to doit?
When can you do it?
You know, huh.
Josh (01:00:02):
What's?
Do you know what the commitmenttime commitment is?
I mean we can look all thisstuff up and play there.
I'm asking you quite on yeah,no, no, no, it's cool but.
Nat (01:00:09):
I, but I'm glad I can speak to most of these things, right?
So we just don't know dead airhere, right?
Yeah so, yeah, if you have aninterest, and most of it's it's
people that they their trails,that they regularly go to or
near their house and they Gopatrol right.
Yeah, so yeah, and it's cooland you get.
Josh (01:00:27):
I think you get a jersey if you, you know yeah, yeah,
we'll put a link to that in theshow.
This is okay.
Mike (01:00:33):
I don't know where I would time, but I do have one more
question.
Josh (01:00:35):
Okay, yeah.
Mike (01:00:35):
Okay, so you you briefly mentioned this before.
So you know, working on thetrails, coordinating all that
but the grant writing, privatesponsorships is that part of
what you do as chair ofdevelopment as well?
Nat (01:00:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've applied for grants and nowI'm like doing the after you
get the grants.
Mike (01:00:55):
There's a whole bunch of you know, admin you need to do
to make sure yeah, right.
Nat (01:01:00):
Yeah, yeah, you're just reporting and like expensing and
all that stuff.
So yeah, I do, I do that.
We're not like a lot of theLike new things we need to big
bucks for have happened, like alot of the trails that were
built, that Tucson Mountain Park, like yeah, that's been done.
So I haven't been doing a tonof that.
But, that's TMP that you referto, right?
(01:01:21):
Yeah, so I'm on part, yeah,yeah, yeah, to some mountain
park TMP.
There were some very big grantsto try to get new construction
done out there, but that's notwhere we're at right now.
We're doing more restoration,right.
And and the money's coming fromother other pots, not ones we're
having to generate.
And grant writing is a lot ofwork, yeah, and a lot of admin
after you get them.
So I Think with me in thefundraising chair once I learned
(01:01:46):
about what grant writing tookunless it was just somebody was
like here, we'll just give yousome money I was like we want to
be very careful about whatgrants we go after and it's
really worth it right.
Sure, yeah, that's yeah, sothere's that and then, yeah, so
I'm also looking at getting withour sponsors and donors and
(01:02:07):
We've had some level oforganization around how we
engage them and and you know,kind of the give and the get,
but that's that.
A lot of things have changedsince that was kind of Really
well designed back in 2017.
Like a lot of that was builtaround a time when, like a
website mentioned matteredpeople Don't you really use
websites anymore.
It's all social media now right,yeah and and then you know we
(01:02:30):
would get into situations likewell, should we ask this person
again now I think we've askedthem too much.
And then we ask, and then wedon't.
We don't include them insomething Like hey, why didn't
you ask?
Development's a funny thing,isn't it right?
Yeah, yeah so with thatsoftware I mentioned earlier
buying, it's like we're gonnatry to digitize.
Like you know, how often dothey want?
Josh (01:02:47):
to be asked.
Nat (01:02:48):
Yeah how do we show gratitude is one of the things
you know.
Like because they're doingstuff for us and we were super
grateful and in most cases theylove us, so like what's the
right level and right?
Josh (01:02:58):
How do we make it a win-win and?
Nat (01:02:59):
let's have it documented who owns the relationship at the
org, you know, and also becausethere's turnover right, we've
got to have that somewhere wherenewcomers can go in and get it.
So yeah, that's part of it,yeah yeah.
Josh (01:03:11):
So hey now, is there anything that we didn't cover,
that you were wanting to cover?
And let me.
I'm gonna ask a question again,but I have something we I don't
think we've talked enough abouthow folks can can sign up to
volunteer.
So so talk us through thatagain.
What's the what's the right wayfor folks to volunteer, either
here in Tucson, with you inMount Graham?
Nat (01:03:32):
And it depends how you want to volunteer, right?
If you are interested in thosecommittees that we talked about
earlier, you can go to SDMBOorgand look at the blog post there,
and that's got all the info youneed on how to get involved in
a committee got you.
If you want to get involved intrail work.
You can follow us on Facebookor on Instagram.
(01:03:55):
We tend to post that stuffthere, right?
We do send out emailsoccasionally, with our events
coming up right.
But I would say, yeah, contactus either through our website,
which has our email, or one ofthe social media channels you
can ask the question or kind ofbrowse through the post there
(01:04:16):
and if you see something, and ifyou don't, then shoot us a note
and we'll get you involved.
Josh (01:04:20):
Yeah, Well, hey, man, on behalf of like all the mountain
bikers in southern Arizona, justthank you and thank your
organization and thank yourvolunteers for all that you're
doing.
Nat (01:04:29):
Yeah.
Josh (01:04:30):
I want to highlight and shout out the the focus on, on,
you know, having a more diverseorganization.
I think that's super noble andI think it's the right thing to
do, and I think it's gonna makethe sport stronger and and grow
faster, which ultimately is whatwe want, because more riders,
you know, more resources, moreeverything.
So yeah super appreciative.
(01:04:50):
Thank you so much, man.
Mike (01:04:51):
You got anything you want to yeah, no, we enjoy the trails
, so thank you, thank you verymuch for all that without
Josh (01:04:57):
you, we'd have nothing to ride.
Nat (01:04:58):
Yeah, yeah, they know our pleasure and you know, please,
the the the best gratitude isgetting involved.
Come out to a trail day, and Iwould say a couple things in
closing.
So we talked a lot about Graham, that graham cracker thing
right now.
This fall it's gonna be, it'sgonna be almost in an ideal
state and in 2024 it absolutelyshould be, and beyond that we're
(01:05:20):
also gonna have this fall.
We do our brushtober thing.
So if you want to stay localand help get the trails
recovered After the monsoonseason, look out for our
brushtober event, which is falltrail maintenance.
Yes, right so so yeah, come joinus and.
Mike (01:05:35):
Yeah.
Nat (01:05:37):
Thanks for riding the trails and, yeah, tell your
friends, get out there, get thestoke.
Mike (01:05:41):
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, thanks you you.
Did you know that you can't run through a campsite?
I know I didn't know that youcan only ran because it's past
tense.
Mike (00:31):
He who's laughs last didn't get the joke that was.
That was a good one, josh, Ilike it.
So you know my son likesketchup, love's ketchup, eats it
and everything.
So today you'll.
You know he opens sometimes alittle like splatter a little
bit.
He got some in his eye.
Now he is hindsight.
Josh (00:47):
It was very good, thank you.
Mike (00:49):
Speaking of dad jokes, I want to give a shout out to
Kerry Demont.
Sent me this beautiful shirt.
I love it.
Get a lot of compliments when Iwear it in public dad jokes are
how I roll spell yeah.
Yeah, so thanks, kerry Demont.
Josh (01:02):
I didn't even pick up on the eye roll until right now.
That's awesome.
Yeah, all right.
So it is a what day?
Today's Tuesday.
Mike (01:11):
Still Tuesday yes, definitely.
Josh (01:14):
Tuesday here on the MCP and we've got a special guest
with us.
Mike (01:18):
Now it's thinking yeah this is Tuesday, tuesday yeah.
Josh (01:24):
So we've got a Nat Gordon with us from Sonoran Desert
Mountain bikers.
Mike (01:30):
Bicyclists.
Josh (01:31):
Sonoran Desert Mountain bicyclists.
So I'm going to read.
I'm going to read from yourwebsite yeah, real quick here.
So the Sonoran Desert Mountainbike list is a bicyclist, jesus
man.
Mike (01:41):
It's a volunteer, it's going to be a good one.
Josh (01:42):
Non-profit organization that devoted to the promotion of
the sport of mountain bikingand views the sport as a vehicle
to promote low impact outdoorrecreation, conservation and
might mountain bicyclingopportunities that are
environmentally and sociallyresponsible.
We were to build, maintain andprotect multi use single track
(02:04):
and mountain bike trail accessto the greater Tucson Arizona
region.
Nat (02:07):
Yeah, right, right, and it's SDMB dot org.
The only thing you might getmixed up with is San Diego
mountain bike association, butthat's SDMB.
Josh (02:17):
So keep off the a, drop the a.
Nobody wants to.
And you may be asking yourselfwhat is the Sonoran Desert?
So, from Wikipedia, the SonoranDesert is a desert in North
America and echo region thatcovers the Northwest Mexican
states of Sonora, bajaCalifornia, baja California, sir
, as well as as well as part ofthe Southwest United States.
(02:40):
It's the hottest desert in bothMexico and the United States.
It has an area of 260,000square kilometers.
The Sonoran Desert is withinthe Sonoran floristic province.
The desert contains a varietyof unique endemic plants and
animals, notably the saguaro andorgan pipe cactus.
You like organ pipes?
The Sonoran Desert iscompletely distinct from nearby
(03:04):
deserts because it providessubtropical warmth in winter and
two seasons of rainfall.
This creates an extremecontrast between aridity Did I
say that word right?
And moisture.
Nat (03:14):
Yeah, I'm going to give it to you, yeah yeah, that's right,
it's pretty good.
Mike (03:18):
It was excellent reading.
I don't read very much, yeah.
Josh (03:22):
All right, so go ahead and introduce yourself, nat.
Nat (03:24):
Yeah, I mean, we're literally feeling that amazing
contrast right now.
It's like 109 today and kind ofhumid.
Josh (03:31):
Yeah, that's special Kind of humans.
Like 30% humidity for us, yeah.
Nat (03:36):
Yeah, yeah.
So hey, thanks for having meguys.
Yeah, so I'm with SDMB, I'm aboard member there and my title
is the development andfundraising chair, but really we
just call it development now,because we I do help with the
fundraising or I apply for thegrants and so on, but I'm also
(03:59):
in the development role, forwardlooking.
So what does SDMB want to beRight?
What does our board want tolook like?
That's one of the missionswe've been on lately.
Sdmb has kind of been taggedwith being a bunch of old white
guys and we need some diversity.
We need some diversity and we'vebeen working on that and I've
been helping to recruit so andwe've been successful in that
(04:22):
and that's made our group moreinteresting, so I'm happy to
report that.
Josh (04:26):
Outstanding.
We have a pretty biglistenership from females, so I
hear that women, yeah, sdmb islooking for some diversity.
Nat (04:32):
Yes, yes, we're.
We continue to seek femaleboard members and we now have
four.
Josh (04:37):
So that's good.
Nat (04:38):
Yeah, right on, yeah yeah.
That's awesome, yeah, so that's.
That's one thing I've been upto.
Another thing is looking at howwe do business, how we even
things like membership software,like the tool that we have that
we're using, that you read thewebsite about.
I might get in trouble if thecompany hears me say this, but
we can cut this out.
It's bad, we're looking for abetter solution.
(05:01):
And this is kind of the thingwith being an all we're all
volunteers.
Nobody's getting paid.
I'm kind of paid executivedirector for a little bit a few
years ago and then that persondecided it wasn't a good use of
the company, of theorganization's money, so you
stopped drawing a salary, right,but anyways.
So I said, hey, let's get abetter membership software.
(05:21):
And if you say something thenit's like well, you got to go do
it.
Josh (05:24):
Like is a volunteer, is a volunteer.
Mike (05:26):
It's like, yeah, you gotta think about every idea.
Josh (05:30):
Hey, you know what we should do?
Oh wait, nevermind, nevermind.
No, I was, I was.
Nat (05:34):
So so I'm out procuring a nonprofit centric.
You know CRM, you know likeSalesforce for a nonprofit so we
can better members, bettermanage our partnerships, our
sponsors, our donors and do morewith less.
So that's one of the things I'mup to.
I think the reason I'm invitedhere is because I am leading a
(05:56):
project with an SDMB out onMount Graham and the Penelonios
Mountains which is in GrahamCounty.
About, depending where you areon the mountain is between an
hour and 45 and four hours, Iwould say, to get to deeper
parts of the mountain.
But most of it's most of wherewe would go to ride I would say
is about hour and 45.
Josh (06:17):
You're talking about from Tucson from Tucson.
Nat (06:19):
Sorry, yeah, yeah, good clarification.
Yeah, assuming we're leavingfrom Tucson, central Tucson.
Yeah, yeah, hour and 45 to likethree hours yeah.
Josh (06:29):
And if you're not familiar with my Graham, I've spent a
lot of time.
Lacey's family has a cabin upthere and they see my wife grew
up up there.
I spent a lot of time at MountGraham, actually named my son
Matthew Graham.
His middle name is after MountGraham.
Mike (06:40):
Yeah.
Josh (06:41):
After we backed away from naming him Hazard, matthew, we
were going to call him Hazmat.
Mike (06:44):
Uh-huh, that was the last minute Decisions to go with.
Josh (06:47):
Matthew Graham.
But in addition to the greatpotential for trail mountain
biking on Mount Graham, it hassome really unique road riding.
Sure, we were talking beforethe podcast started.
It's like Tour de France riding.
It's the kind of riding thatyou see on television.
It's the crazy, you know 180degree switchbacks, super steep,
(07:08):
paved good and very, verylittle traffic compared to like
what you'll see in Mount Lemmon.
So if you're a road rider andyou haven't been to Mount Graham
I know they do the Mount Grahamhill climb every year.
There's a lot of awesome roadriding, so bring your road bike
and your mountain bike, go visit.
Nat (07:22):
Mount Graham?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a 200 foot sustained climbfrom down at the general store
up to Shannon, I think it mightbe Just to Shannon, it might be.
Yeah, and then if you it's andyou can go up to Heliograph, if
you're willing to do the gravelgrind up to Heliograph, that's
another two miles and 900 feet.
So yeah, you're over.
(07:43):
You're over seven grandsustained yeah.
Josh (07:48):
It puts you in the hurt locker for sure.
Mike (07:51):
So on the website it mentions reopening the Mount
Graham trails.
What does that mean, reopening?
Nat (07:56):
Does that say that on our website?
Josh (07:58):
I don't know what website.
Mike (07:59):
you're referring to the SDMB as far as Bill, the main
train.
So this is one of thecommittees called trails love.
Oh, yeah, and it talks aboutBill, the maintained mountain
bike trails, the enchanted hills, explorer portal trails at
Kennedy park.
Reopening trails at MountGraham.
Nat (08:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So that is true.
I just didn't know that.
That said that I should knowthat.
Josh (08:21):
So you're a volunteer man, it's all good, yeah, right.
Nat (08:24):
Let's just back up on Mount Graham though.
So it is 10,700 feet.
It's high Salisvete elevation,and the Saford Hila Valley is
about 3,000.
It's 7,700 vertical feet.
It's the most prominentmountain in the state, even
though what is it?
Josh (08:38):
Humphries Peak up in Flag is higher, starting at a higher
elevation.
Nat (08:43):
And it's the largest of the Madrean Sky Islands, or tallest
, tallest, sorry, yeah, which isthis?
Josh (08:50):
You probably need to explain what a Sky Island is for
our listeners.
Nat (08:52):
Yeah, so am I going to see this right?
It's an archipelago, right?
So there are these scatteredmountains kind of in between the
Rockies.
Man, I'm going to get roastedif I get this wrong.
Mike (09:05):
Between the Rockies and the Sierra Madre of Mexico.
Nat (09:08):
And it's these, and they have such elevation that they
act as islands, because thestory with Mount Lemon or Mount
Graham is you can go from thisMexico type climate all the way
up to Canadian type climate inthe 6,000 feet of elevation
change.
Josh (09:24):
Yeah, I mean, we actually have a ski resort here in Tucson
the southern most ski resort inthe United States, which is
crazy.
People think about TucsonArizona.
You guys have a ski resortthere, yeah, and it's not the
best, but when you get two feetof powder, it's two feet of
powder.
That's what I say Absolutely.
Nat (09:39):
And like I did this winter in January, I rode prison camp
mountain bike loop in themorning and I went up and skied
in the afternoon.
Mike (09:45):
Perfect, no way.
Nat (09:46):
On the same mountain.
That's pretty cool.
Mike (09:50):
It's like a snow hike in your bike.
Oh yeah, on bugs.
Yeah, that's what it was.
That's pretty impressive.
Nat (09:55):
Yeah, so that's really cool .
So yeah, Graham is unique andif you it's a lot of it's burned
but there's a lot more intact,kind of big spruce forest up
there.
Josh (10:07):
Yeah, when was the fire?
They had a fire.
What was it?
Nat (10:10):
17.
Fried fire 17, 17.
And then I think it's 04, notall fire.
Those are the ones that reallykind of put this mountain in a
situation to go back to you,Mike, where trails needed to be
reopened.
Mike (10:22):
That's the most thing I've referenced to the fire probably
.
Nat (10:24):
Yeah.
So two big fires came throughand you need time to heal from
the burn scars, and then I wouldsay there were also challenges
in Plus.
It was hard to heal completelywhen it started fire.
Honestly, it looked quite likeit was going to begin trail
maintenance initiatives, right,whether it was volunteers coming
(10:47):
in or just the Forest Servicehaving the funds to do it, right
.
Josh (10:51):
So and it's a small community there.
It's not like Tucson, I thinklike the whole Hilo Valley is
like 30,000 people or somethingright, yeah, yeah, tucson's over
a million and I would say theamount of damage that was done.
Nat (11:01):
this is important.
The fire burns so hot in placeslike Grant Hill, which is up at
about 9,000 feet, which used tobe a mountain bike.
Josh (11:09):
Yup, yeah, like Grant Loop .
Yeah, we used to ride that allthe time.
Nat (11:11):
And Web Peak they had to bring in.
I was just told they had tobring in a special like severe
burn unit to evaluate with WebPeak to like both study and try
to assess what happened to theearth and the vegetation there
and the wildlife because itburns so bad.
Oh wow, I hadn't heard that,yeah, and then with that you've
just had horrific years ofblowdowns and deadfall.
(11:33):
Just keep coming and coming andcoming and they're honestly
finally just in some places likeArcadia Trail, just stabilizing
, starting to stabilize, so yeah.
And then to go back, like WebPeak and some of Grant Hill were
cleared out two years ago andbecause they've got so much
deadfall, it's like rows of deadlogs again that need 10
chainsaw, that's fun.
Mike (11:54):
Yeah, I would imagine some erosion happens as well because
of that.
Nat (11:57):
Oh yeah, there's blown out trails all over the mountain,
all kinds of stuff, yeah.
So an example.
We don't want to get too intothe weeds of this, but Arcadia
Trail, which is a nationalrecreation trail which we're
working to restore.
The corridor is open, but itdoes need improvement to get it
like more all abilities riding.
There you go, but at the bottomof that trail there used to be
(12:21):
kind of a gentle creek crossingand due to the burn and the
monsoon floods coming through,it's now a 60 foot chasm.
Wow, they had that.
Josh (12:30):
Oh, I didn't even realize.
I know exactly where you'retalking about.
Yeah, a wet canyon, a wetcanyon, okay, yeah no, it's like
a chasm.
And then my predecessor, EvanPilling, whom you may know, we
know Evan, or we know of Evan.
Nat (12:41):
Yeah, so Evan went through and led a state fire crew
through there and built areroute.
It's very.
I mean, he did the absolutebest with what's left of the
sides of that canyon becauseit's so steep.
But yeah, a reroute had to bebuilt in there when we first
started going in and working onArcadia Trail and I'll get into
the history here in a minute.
This will be a good segue.
Segways are great on the radio,right?
(13:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike (13:07):
We prefer awkward silences but, Segways will work today.
Nat (13:12):
Okay, well, I'm in development and this is some
process improvement.
Josh (13:16):
Yeah, right on, there you go.
Nat (13:19):
So yeah, when we first started going in there, it was a
straight up scramble into likea boulder field.
And then we had one of ourvolunteers from like Davis
Monthan, that knew how to runsome lines and ran a hand line.
So then we were like almostkind of repelling in a wet
canyon to get over and do trailwork and stuff.
Josh (13:37):
Wow, crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, dude, I gotta get up thereand check it out.
Man, I haven't been out thatfar in a while, interesting.
Mike (13:44):
So, like you mentioned, kind of get into maybe some of
what like an average day upthere looks like when you're
trying to build these trails andrework them.
Nat (13:55):
Okay, so it depends.
Right, it depends on the timeof year, what part of the
mountain we're working on andwhat the soil is like, and
there's a lot of variation.
Back to the sky island thing,right, and the lower reaches
it's about 5,000 feet, so it'skind of like High desert.
Yeah, Oracle, Reddington Molino, right, but it's rocky.
(14:20):
I'd say it's quite rocky.
There's a lot of decomposedgranite.
Josh (14:24):
So now we have to be careful.
We have an internationallistener base so they're not
gonna know like the local Tucsonlandmarks.
Yeah, to kind of try to explainthem a little bit.
Nat (14:31):
Okay, yeah, so it is a high desert, decomposed granite, so
a lot of rock.
So you're going out and tryingto fix braided, eroded trails
that have a lot of water comedown them and you've got to go
do a lot of rock work.
You've got or we've got.
Josh (14:49):
And it's interesting, you know, in the desert this is like
not loam, right, it's looseover hard and there's nowhere
for the water to go.
And a lot of times when itrains we get monsoon rains, we
get heavy rains that come reallyreally fast.
We get a ton of volume of waterthat comes down on the trail
really really quickly and thatwater is not able to like, the
ground, is not able to absorb it.
(15:10):
And if you have, specificallyif you have, a trail that wasn't
designed to deal with, likewatershed right, you get the
trails that make an excellentplace for the water to follow
and so, typical, they'll followthat line and then they can just
wash out In one monsoon rainyou can like wash out an entire
trail.
Nat (15:28):
Sure, thank you, josh, for giving that context.
Yeah, so they can become creeksright or water flows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it is allabout erosion control or coming
back, fixing that and try tocontinue to mitigate it.
So in the lower elevationswhich we try to work in the
cooler months, obviously it'sanything from like.
(15:49):
One example would be twoFebruary's ago we just moved a
section we have about 60 feet tokind of move within a corridor.
That's without an environmentalreview, and we moved a trail
over about 15 feet to an areabecause we're like the trails,
literally the drain.
Josh (16:06):
Now so let's let the drain be the drain.
Let's go build a new drain.
Nat (16:09):
We're gonna go uphill a little bit.
We're gonna build a newsmoother curve here and then but
we still had to, leading intoit, build these things called
check dams, which are basicallythese embedded rock water bars,
you know.
Mike (16:23):
So some engineering.
Nat (16:24):
At intervals.
Yeah, and that was a weekend ofworking on maybe 60 feet of
trail like eight people thewhole weekend.
So okay, so yeah slow work.
Josh (16:37):
Can you, if you're okay, can you dive a little bit into
check dam?
I've seen these.
I called them water bars, butI've seen these on the trails
and I don't fully understand,like why they were set up or
what they're used for.
Nat (16:46):
Can you help me understand that?
Yeah, so I'm not the superexpert on check dams, but as I
see them, it's in areas, andthere's actually a great video
series I can share with you thatthe Arizona Trail Association
put out, and it's called TrailSkills Essentials.
Josh (17:00):
Yeah, I think we talked about we had Matt Elsinan from
ATA, so I think Matt talkedabout that as well.
So we'll put that in the shownotes guys.
Nat (17:07):
And I think that was that's under their topic of, like more
advanced erosion control, andthat's essentially when you're
in a situation where you, asJosh you pointed out you can't
avoid the water flowing down it,so you've gotta build.
They're more or less like stepsthat try to slow it down.
Yeah, yeah, check dams, checkdams, yeah.
Josh (17:28):
And they're probably a foot and a half tall maybe so
it's almost like you're ridingdown.
When you're riding down, it'slike you're riding down stairs.
Nat (17:35):
Let me get a jump down.
We try to roll them as makethem as round as we can.
Josh (17:40):
That kind of defeats the purpose a little bit, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Nat (17:44):
Well, you've got hopefully some off camber water flow going
off when it gets up to it.
So then, yeah, not have it tooabrupt.
So yeah, those are check dams.
Mike (17:55):
So how did you learn about all the details, from check
dams to the 60 foot area thatyou mentioned, or?
Thank you, corridor, all thesedetails?
That must go into it that whenI'm writing I don't really
notice sure.
Nat (18:11):
So to go back, I was kind of an assistant trail
coordinator, crew leader for theMount Graham thing that SDMB
was doing.
Evan Pilling was the lead andEvans a professional trail
builder and also has had yearsof in years of experience
(18:32):
engaging the land managers.
Josh (18:34):
So so you're a apprentice under a master right, right,
right.
Nat (18:39):
I was very fortunate to imprentice under him and he was
very clear at letting everybodyknow when we're out on trail
like it's right or wrong.
We can move it.
We've got this much room.
You know, and in this area,that that whole scenario we're
talking about the check dams,the realignment, knowing we
could move it that far.
Learn that all from Evan himcascading down his both his
(18:59):
knowledge of construction andthe rules of engagement with the
plan manager.
Mike (19:05):
Very cool.
Yeah, so you spend a lot oftime working engineering
building trails.
Do you spend more time buildingtrails or writing?
Writing a bike nowadays?
Nat (19:16):
In general, or when I'm at my grand.
Josh (19:19):
No, it was interesting.
So I think part of why Mike'sasked this question is when we
had Tucker and Patrick on from.
Mike (19:26):
Angel fire.
Josh (19:27):
Tucker said I just fell in love with building trail, sure,
and and I'm almost more in lovewith the trail building that I
am with the riding he's likeI'll ride my bike to like test
out the jump that I just built,sure, and he asked him like what
kind of bike he has, and he washe didn't really even know.
Mike (19:42):
He was like I don't know it's still works.
Josh (19:46):
So he doesn't even like most mountain bikers.
You know like right you cantell you every single ounce of
water and whatever on their bike.
But he was like just a lover ofthe building process and
frankly he was the first personI've ever met that said that
most trail builders have met.
Are you know, bad ass?
Cyclists love cycling andthey're doing that passion, kind
of feed each other.
Where do you fall in thatspectrum?
Nat (20:06):
Great question.
So I don't consider myself atrail builder, totally like like
somebody at the gentlemanyou're talking about Angel fire
cuz like he's probably designingsomething and they're getting
the axe out there and doing itright.
I'm doing more restoration,right, but, but I do, there are
improvements.
I'm starting to dabble intomaybe what the what would be
(20:28):
considered construction likewhen I'm shaping some of these
corners.
But anyways, to answer yourquestion, I still very much love
riding.
I do ride less, but there's areason.
There's a benefit though, andit's not so like.
I love doing trail work, but Ifind that if I ride less, I and
(20:49):
like I found before I was doingtrail work, I was over riding
and it was becoming like kind ofa hamster wheel.
Josh (20:55):
I wasn't enjoying as much as riding, too much, you know it
was getting border trailssometimes you gotta take a break
, right, right, I know, right,when I leave my wife for a week
and I come back and like Ireally love you, yeah, yeah,
just just, just just kiddinglacy yeah, and and and part of
that was is like it was with.
Nat (21:12):
You know, we're all getting older here, right?
Mike (21:14):
and yeah, and we're not getting younger body break right
and in Duro.
Nat (21:18):
I'm kind of in in Duros, kind of my preference right, and
that does a number on yourjoints right.
Yeah, for sure, and so I waslike I gotta rest, I gotta
stretch, I gotta strength trainmore, but what I'm getting at
the trail, the trail work whichI didn't think because some of
it's been shoulder related andstuff it's actually been really
beneficial Just helping buildyour body.
(21:40):
For that, yeah, yeah and andand then yeah, it does kind of
give me this balance between,you know, working on trails and
then writing and reaping therewards.
Or also the thing I like themost like in our most recent
volunteer weekend was just thispast weekend is taking people
down the goods, you know yeah,and look what we did yeah,
sharing the stuff, like evenhiking out on the trail we just
(22:02):
work, is like shake trail weworked on this weekend.
We didn't.
We didn't ride that when wewrote a different trail.
Josh (22:06):
But people are just like so, like please with themselves
and Like seeing the finishproduct that's that if you guys
actually do that all the waydown out, that would be pretty
nuts alright.
So so we go all over on thispodcast.
Tons of rabbit holes.
Yeah, I think you were kind ofon a roll to kind of talk us
through your game plan and whatwas going on Mount Graham, and I
think we took you down somerabbit holes.
So maybe we could take you backto Mount Graham and like what's
(22:28):
your grand vision?
How's it going?
Sure, and then I think onething we want to highlight a
couple times in this podcast islike how can people volunteer?
Nat (22:35):
sure.
I appreciate that yeah yeah, sodo we want to do like my, like
origin story with Mount Grahamto kind of get?
Josh (22:41):
yeah, let's start with that man.
Nat (22:43):
That sounds good okay because it's kind of it's kind
of interesting and it's likeit's digitally documented, which
is kind of neat right in theOkay, right, so I don't know
what that means.
Josh (22:52):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah , we'll explain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out,it's out, okay, cool there's.
Nat (22:56):
There's a digital.
Yeah, there's a digital trail.
I don't know if it's blockchainor not, but there's a digital.
Yeah, you know, becauseblockchain you can't take back
right once it's out there yeah,yeah.
So, as I mentioned earlier, I'mnewer to Tucson.
I've lived here for about threeyears and you grew up where
(23:16):
Portland main.
Josh (23:17):
Portland.
Okay, right now, yeah, main,main, yeah different for the
original Portland.
I even know there was aPortland in Maine yeah, no, no
worries, it's the big city, yeah.
Mike (23:27):
Yeah, no, I just heard something about the real estate
in Portland main.
Nat (23:30):
I didn't realize it's kind of a hotspot it's a major
hotspot yeah, I know that yeahyeah, it's a very cool small
city in New England, super coolright on yeah, yeah, it's on the
ocean.
You're not far from hills andmountains.
Josh (23:45):
I mean, killing 10 is not that far from there.
Nat (23:47):
Right and get up yeah, killing 10 is like probably
three and a half hours, butwe've got our own mountain sugar
loaf.
Sunday river.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you knowthose ones yeah, so yeah, it's
an old, you know New Englandcity, so there's not a lot of
room for housing.
It's pretty dense, right.
That's why, and and it's gottenhip.
You know, people moving fromBoston, new York, wherever want
(24:09):
to go, live the good life, main,the way life should be.
That's their motto.
Mike (24:13):
So People are tapping that right right on yeah anyway.
Nat (24:16):
so yeah for Portland main originally.
But prior to living in southernArizona I was living, I lived
in the Bay Area, mostly inOakland, for about 15 years and
got into Trail kind of advocacyand volunteering with trail work
, with the Syrab you trailstewards and they're, they're
(24:39):
the, they're the guys that bringyou downyville and all that
kind of stuff, right?
Josh (24:44):
familiar with that.
Yeah, it's like the birthplace,but don't tell the Colorado
guys.
But yeah the birthplace ofmountain yeah.
Nat (24:51):
So downyville, there's a whole story there and this is
where I get inspired about it.
But there's a whole story withyou know, downyville, and that's
the Tahoe national force therethat sometime, and I believe was
maybe the 90s, they cut trailmaintenance funding or maybe the
early 2000s, and there werebusinesses shuttle businesses,
bike shops that relied on thisyep and the owners of those
(25:14):
businesses and the communitymembers got together and created
a stewardship and volunteertrails organization.
To pick up that man.
It's because it both createdjobs yeah, record, or created
jobs recreation and and it wasjust the right thing to do.
Why would you want to let thosetrails just disappear?
yeah yeah, so worked with them afew times a year and just love
(25:34):
their model and also love thatkind of big mountain Sierra
riding.
We get up there and do that abunch and, as I was, it was kind
of a deliberate move down.
To some we were wanting to getout of the bay and to some was
on our short list.
Loved Mount lemon had writtenhere a bunch, you know loved all
the trails in Tucson, love TMP.
But also was like poking aroundon the map Like what else is
(25:56):
out of there, what?
What's going to be my weekendtrips, right?
yeah and what's going to be myweekend trips, but also not flag
staff, because I know I'm goingto be competing with A thousand
other right, right, right sotwo places came up the panels
outside of globe.
Josh (26:10):
Yeah, trail forks, great I mean.
And actually, yeah, we had Matton, he was talking about some
of the like there is on a trailand like, yeah, some of the like
, the hidden gems on that trailyeah, you know in that direction
.
Mike (26:20):
so Just to back up, so you guys pick where you're going to
reside, live based on themountain biking.
Josh (26:28):
Well, how else would you find a house to live in?
Mike (26:31):
I don't know.
That's where you pick yourhouse location.
Josh (26:33):
My house has to be within the right distance of the
traditional that's what I'mhearing.
Nat (26:37):
Yeah, so there's a heavy weight bias on cycling.
Josh (26:40):
Yes, Very cool, yeah, yeah , is your partner right as well?
Nat (26:43):
She does More like like Hardtail Cross Country MTV and.
Josh (26:49):
Gravel and Road.
Nat (26:50):
Cool.
Mike (26:51):
Yeah.
Nat (26:51):
Yeah, yeah, but it's good.
Yeah, yeah, so, and she comesup in this trail work at Mount
Crown which is really cool.
Mike (26:56):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Nat (26:57):
Yeah, so, but I've been visiting Arizona and Tucson for
years and I just love the vibehere, you know, and there was
obviously, like you know, it's amountain city, it's got most of
the services, it's affordableand it's got, you know.
I mean to me like, if you'retalking about technical big
(27:18):
mountain riding, like MountLemmon is, it's it yeah.
Mike (27:21):
It's the corner of the breast.
Nat (27:22):
Yeah, it ranks with anywhere in the world, right.
Mike (27:24):
Yeah.
Nat (27:25):
And I was like I want to live near that, you know.
But I knew I kind of had riddenhere enough.
I'd been here three or fourtimes and I wanted to know what
other you know, rounding out myexperience, what would that be?
And then I said, like I said itwas like in the penals, saw
those on Trail Forks and I sawMount Graham and that those were
all marked on Trail Forks butthere was nothing behind, no
(27:46):
Strava, right, they were on theTrail Forks, you could click on
them.
There may be.
One guy was like yeah, thisthing burn.
I know what that was going onhere, but there was hardly
anything.
So it just curiosity got thebest me.
So I put something out on MTBR,which people used to use more
right the mountain bike forumthere, and just said, hey,
what's going on?
Mount Graham?
Anybody in the Arizona forum,anybody know?
(28:07):
Is there a trail advocacy groupout there?
Like there's, there's five miletrails with like 4,000 feet of
ascending.
That place has got to beawesome.
What's going on?
Josh (28:14):
Right.
Nat (28:15):
And nobody came back at first.
And then I went back again andsome guy from Phoenix came back
and was like yeah, burn man,Like there's no organization out
there and it burned really bad,so we don't know what's going
on, right.
And it's going to need time toheal.
So we move here in September of2020, during the kind of high
(28:38):
to the pandemic.
Mike (28:39):
Right.
Nat (28:40):
And I'm like, hey, let's head out to Mount Graham in
October, go see the fall colorsand see what's going on with
these trails.
Yeah, so we roll out there andorchard.
Yeah, yeah, we.
I don't think they were open.
I think we went on a Sunday.
I don't think they were.
Josh (28:54):
Yeah, yeah.
Nat (28:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, but yeah.
So we rolled up and I tried toride Arcadia and I got like a
mile into it and it had a numberof like 24 inch down trees
diameter and literally sapling,aspen saplings like growing in
(29:15):
the middle, in the middle of thetrail.
Josh (29:16):
Yeah.
Nat (29:16):
Yeah.
Josh (29:19):
Oh, where it's beer time, he wants an IPA.
Yeah, yeah, thank you Sorry,you want me to go get you on
while we're no, no, no, no,we're good, we're good.
Nat (29:27):
I am not looking a gift horse in a gift horse in the
mouth.
Mike (29:31):
I don't want to be associated with that.
Nat (29:32):
Thank you, mike.
Yes, so try to do that.
And what was funny, like thisis so futile.
I had like my little hands onwith me.
I cut it on a couple ofsaplings.
Josh (29:42):
Did something.
Nat (29:43):
Chuck them out of the way.
Josh (29:44):
Cool.
Nat (29:45):
I'm going to come back, man , yeah, so rolled out of there
and then went down and tried toride up or ladybug, I know
you're.
So another trail on themountain that looked like it
might be a good mountain biketrail, yep, and people had
ridden these.
There was a little bit of betathat people had ridden Yep Out
there on the interwebs got downthat one ridiculously short
(30:08):
switchbacks, ones that you wouldjust want to ride down the
middle.
And then, yeah, that situationwas scrub oak growing right into
the middle of the tread.
So I hiked back up it both,both situations.
I hiked back up the trail.
Josh (30:19):
Never made it down to the bottom.
Nat (30:20):
Never made it down to the bottom, so get back to home base
and go on a local Facebookgroup here to some mountain bike
conditions.
Yep, Put out a post.
Hey went out to Mount Graham.
Here's what I saw.
What's up.
And then that led me to SDMBand Evan.
And Evan was like hey, I'veactually been thinking and
talking to the Coronado Safradistrict about getting a
(30:42):
volunteer agreement.
But my thing is, his thing wasI need people to actually be
interested to support it.
And what happened from there isI was like I'm all in and other
people said they wereinterested, had ridden there 20
years ago, and Evan went and gota volunteer agreement of the
forest and like two weeks theyturned it around.
So we.
Mike (31:02):
This is how they were hungry for help.
Josh (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, yes, and that was laid off.
Nat (31:09):
I don't know third week of October 2020, and we were out
there working second week inDecember.
Mike (31:13):
Nice.
Nat (31:14):
Super drought year so we were able to actually work lower
Arcadia in.
Josh (31:19):
Yeah, it's typically the mountain.
Nat (31:20):
Yeah.
Josh (31:21):
So you know, in Southern Arizona we have eight months of
awesome weather, we have fourmonths of awful weather.
That awful weather is here inthe summer and really we just go
ride at five in the morning ora good do a night ride and it's
okay.
Just in the day you don't ride.
You're going to be going toscorch yourself.
But it's unusual to be able togo up that high on Moncram in
December because there'ssnowpack basically.
Nat (31:42):
Yeah, exactly right.
So it was a dry year.
It was still cold, but duringthe day, because of the Arizona
sun at elevation, even in thewinter is still pretty warm,
even though it's 45 or 50 feelswarmer than that.
And that trail is mostly Eastfacing so you're right, in that
morning afternoon sun.
So we worked out there allwinter and I can show you guys
(32:04):
pictures.
But the trail was completelygrown in, like you know,
manzanita oak.
Josh (32:11):
What was this trail?
You said this, but I forgot.
Nat (32:12):
Sorry, this is Arcadia.
Josh (32:13):
Arcadia.
Nat (32:14):
Okay and fully, you know fully grown in.
So we went in and brushed itout over a few months and then
and you're starting at Arcadiaworking up to Shannon, or what
were you doing?
Exactly Starting at Arcadia,working up to Shannon with the
goal of clear, brushing out thewhole corridor and then getting
into tread work, and we're doingsome of that too, so okay, so
(32:34):
can you explain the differencebetween brushing and tread work?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So brushing is the removal ofvegetation from the trail and
the standard is a six footcorridor which we usually
measure by just putting yourarms length out as far as you
can.
So you want to get the brushback to there.
(32:55):
I guess there's.
There's also a horse standard,10 feet high, If there's horse
traffic or use on the trail too.
Mike (33:00):
Right, Because you want them to be able to clear it.
Nat (33:02):
So how does brushing work?
You could be taking pruners,hand saws, chainsaws, getting
all that stuff out and thentread.
Work is tread is the trail thatyou're actually working on.
I think most people are used toworking, walking on trails that
(33:22):
have a pretty good bench tothem, pretty good grade, pretty
level, not too lumpy, beaten inpretty well, so they don't think
about it.
But when trails have not beenused for a long time or have
suffered a burn or a lot oferosion, they become lumpy.
They can even be gone.
They could just slide off thehill and you got to dig back
into the slope and reestablishit.
Mike (33:41):
Yep.
Nat (33:42):
So that tread work would be taking tools to dig back to the
proper standards of tread.
Yeah, we're back on tread work.
So that was tread work andbrushing.
So I guess we need to continueon with what's been going on
with Mount Cram.
So yeah, we've had volunteerweekends and events since
(34:03):
December of 2020.
And it's now what?
July of 2023.
Mike (34:08):
It's a lot of volunteer hours.
Josh (34:09):
So let me ask you this Are all your volunteers coming out
from Tucson and Phoenix, or doyou have volunteers that are
coming from the Gila Valleythere?
Nat (34:18):
The majority are from Tucson.
We have a couple guys or a fewpeople from Phoenix, the Valley
right Yep.
Josh (34:26):
The Phoenix Valley.
Nat (34:27):
Yep, we have a.
We do have a few from Safford,heela Valley too.
Josh (34:35):
Okay, cool.
Nat (34:36):
But it all depends.
Not everyone's there everyweekend, right, yeah, yeah, but
I would say probably 80% Tucson,10% Phoenix 10%.
Josh (34:47):
Safford 10%.
Nat (34:48):
Heela Safford.
Josh (34:49):
And do you have a relationship Like the end of the
day of a bike shop down therenext to the ACE hardware in
Safford?
Nat (34:53):
I've talked to that guy.
I can't remember his name.
It's called Hot Wheels, isn'tit?
I think?
Josh (34:58):
It might be, I don't know.
Nat (34:59):
I talked to that guy.
I randomly called him and hegot me in touch with a guy that
now does trail work with us.
So that was cool.
Josh (35:05):
Yeah right on.
Nat (35:06):
Yeah, and I'm also in touch with the Heela Valley Chamber
of Commerce cause they'reinterested in promoting the
mountain and the recreationthere.
Josh (35:13):
So we have a lot of like connections into the community
there.
So maybe we can leverage thoseconnections, see if we can like
dig up some more mountain bikers, cause I can tell you that like
a lot of the folks that wetalked to.
I don't think they know what'sgoing on.
Nat (35:25):
Yeah, I sense that too.
There's a little bit of it.
But yeah, anything you could doto connect us with more peeps,
we'd love that.
Josh (35:33):
Yeah, for sure.
Nat (35:35):
And ultimately our goal is to establish and it doesn't have
to be mountain biker centric-it's better.
Josh (35:43):
If it's not actually right , Much better.
Yeah, More users.
Nat (35:46):
Because, in reality, mountain bikers are not the
majority users.
Josh (35:51):
Not a mountain.
Nat (35:52):
For sure.
Yeah, by a long shot.
We would like to help incubateand develop and even equip and
whether that's a tool cache thatthe Forest Service provides or
whatever, get a local crew andstaff are going, because they
would just have more flexibility, because there's 30 minutes
from the mountain instead.
Mike (36:11):
And turn it over to them for some maintenance.
Nat (36:14):
Yeah, yeah, plugment Ideally, yeah, yeah, and you
know we still want to be a partof it, but ideally it should be
owned there and run there, yeah.
Mike (36:23):
So you're going on three years now on this project.
That sounds like, if I did themath right, you're correct.
Yeah, so what kind of progresshave you made?
How many miles, I guess Sureand trails.
And then where are you going inthe next near term?
Nat (36:38):
Sure, good question.
So we're three years into it.
But what's interesting abouttrails, right is that.
And it's been interestingweather since this project has
started.
So we went from the worstdrought in the history of
Arizona, the driest year, to thewettest.
Josh (36:53):
We had a 50 year monsoon.
Nat (36:55):
And then another really good one, and then an epic
winter right.
Josh (37:00):
So you're redoing.
Nat (37:00):
So that's if you want to talk about one of that, my real
issue, the biggest pains ofbeing a trail person is watching
it grow back in or blow out andyou're like I do oh, we just
did that.
And you're out there withsomeone like you put we did it,
we did it.
Josh (37:17):
I swear we worked on it so .
Nat (37:21):
So two things right.
Use is work is what I'm goingto say in response to that.
So Mount Graham doesn't get aton of use.
Josh (37:30):
And use actually helps bed the trail in and establish the
trail and stop the vegetation,exactly Feet beating the trail
right.
Nat (37:38):
So I got kind of asymmetric in my approach.
I was more like mountain bikecentric, just updating trail
forks.
But now I'm out there going tohigh KZ, all trails Like I'm all
in all fours.
Josh (37:48):
We're trying to get the word out so people use the
trails that should we all bringfat bikes out there or something
to kind of like yeah.
Nat (37:54):
Yeah, bring a 250.
Josh (37:55):
Wrap it out.
Nat (37:57):
Yeah, I'm going to jail.
Josh (37:59):
Do not do that.
Those are not allowed.
Yeah, yeah, this is a safford.
Do not bring your motorcycleright onto the trails.
Nat (38:06):
I'm being encourageable.
Josh (38:08):
But you can have a fat bike with a mechanical no engine
.
Nat (38:17):
So we've made great progress, but because of our
ability to keep up with thescale of the project, there's
been setbacks right.
So to give you an idea, though,what we're focused on is a
flagship route called the grahamcracker.
Mike (38:36):
Yeah.
Josh (38:36):
So both the stars, it's like the lemon drop, same
concept.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ihaven't heard that term, but it
makes it all in a sense.
Nat (38:42):
To me that's a great name, so it's on brand with Mount
Lemmon in the Southern Arizonatradition of, and we're even
going to try to tie in with likelemma, like merengue, right,
because there's that right ontop of lemon right.
So we've also kind of developedsomething in the spirit of that.
But so the graham cracker isthe flagship route and what that
is is that is a shuttle runfrom.
(39:03):
You'll get dropped off atShannon Campground and you will
ride Arcadia Trail down toArcadia Campground.
You will climb up to TurkeyFlat, you will take Turkey Flat
connector.
Josh (39:14):
How the hell you climbing to Turkey Flat from oh shit on
the road From.
Nat (39:18):
Arcadia on the road.
Josh (39:18):
On the road.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Nat (39:19):
Yep, so you climb on the road to Turkey Flat.
Josh (39:23):
Which is not that far.
It's like a couple miles,couple miles, a couple, two,
three miles.
Nat (39:27):
No, there's not much.
That's probably the.
There's a, yeah, there's maybe.
Out of this 70 mile route I'mabout to lay out, there's maybe
three miles of road connection.
There you go.
So get up to Turkey Flat.
That's a little steep, it's abit of hike a bike it's, but
pedal to it's not as hard asmost of the hike a bikes that
most people in Tucson know.
(39:47):
So that's good.
And then you get up on Ladybug.
Josh (39:53):
So you're riding from Turkey Flat up the road, up the
trail, to Ladybug.
Nat (39:57):
Yep, and then you go downhill Because we don't upper.
Ladybug is has a lot ofsections that just aren't
favorable to mountain biking andwould need some.
Josh (40:06):
I have tried to ride those .
Those switchbacks are like,yeah, they're beyond my skill
level.
Nat (40:11):
And I've had some people call me out and be like no dude,
it's rideable and I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, For a select few
humans.
Josh (40:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nat (40:17):
Yeah, but.
But you know the right bang forthe buck.
Josh (40:21):
And the price of failure is pretty rough up there too.
Nat (40:23):
If you, if you go off, so you head down toward what is
called angle orchard, which isthe orchard you spoke of earlier
.
Mike (40:29):
Yep.
Nat (40:29):
So so let's just back up.
So you've gone from Shannon toArcadia, so you've dropped five
miles and 2700 vertical feet,and then you get up to Ladybug
and you're going to drop anotherfour and a half miles and 2800
feet Down to Engels, down toEngel, orchard, and then I've
got a little kind of reverselollipop thing in the round the
(40:50):
mountain and creek complex there, and that adds another 1200
foot of drop.
So the route is 17 miles with2600 feet of climbing and 6300
feet of descending.
Mike (41:00):
It sounds like an awesome trail.
Nat (41:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's like it's a thing, yeah it's a thing.
Mike (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's a thing.
So what kind of ETA do you haveon this?
Nat (41:12):
I mean.
So here's what's amazing.
Back to the.
I think we talked earlier.
Josh (41:15):
You could do it now, right ?
It's, I mean it's rideable, nowit's rideable.
Nat (41:18):
now it's rideable but it's rough, it's advanced, it's back
country, it's rustic, right yeah, and there's variations Like
Arcadia is an easier trail thanLadybug but it's got more
overgrowth and kind of hiddenstuff under the overgrowth.
Ladybug is outright moretechnical, but it's more clear,
(41:39):
it's more open, you've gotbetter visibility, and then the
lower around the mountain stuffis actually in really good shape
.
Well, I've got crews goingthrough there right now.
We'll get to that, but that'sjust got great kind of classic
upper intermediate flow in myopinion.
Yeah so, and then there's oneother version which adds another
trail off of Heliograph Peakcalled Heliograph Trail, which
(41:59):
is above Shannon Campground, andthat adds another 400 feet of
no, no, no, that's another 900feet of climbing.
Josh (42:09):
So you'd climb up the service road, basically, or you
can't drive up there.
Nat (42:12):
Right, exactly.
So you get dropped off nearShannon Campground at the
Heliograph Road.
You'd climb up there.
You top out at 10,080 feet.
Josh (42:21):
Yeah, it's super cool views up there too.
Yeah, so high 10,080 feet.
Nat (42:25):
There's a fire tower up there, some old Forest Service
cabins, unbelievable views.
So with that route which iscalled S'mores, and that's
because it's a pun on GrahamCracker, but also because it's
some more climbing anddescending.
Mike (42:40):
Some more.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nat (42:42):
So S'mores is that route is 19 miles or 19 and 1 half, and
I think it's 30, 3,500 feet ofclimbing and 7,000 feet of
descending.
Damn.
Mike (42:56):
Wow.
Nat (42:56):
Yeah, with a shuttle, yeah.
Josh (42:58):
With a shuttle.
Yeah, yeah.
Mike (43:00):
So how many total miles of trail are up there?
Up there A lot.
Nat (43:06):
There's probably over 50.
But we're kind of in this offthe Mount Graham Highway which
is called the Swift Highway mainaccess point.
We're kind of really tied intothat.
We're trying to do the mostkind of like.
Josh (43:18):
So you can shuttle, yeah, shuttle, easy logistics and
there's a lot of spots wherepeople can jump in in different
areas there.
Nat (43:22):
Right, yeah, these can be three different rides.
Yeah, you don't have to do thismassive thing.
And then there's another trailwe're working on the backside,
which is Shake, which is alonger shuttle.
That's probably an hour shuttlearound, but that's a 5 mile
3,000 foot descent.
It ends in a campground, it's.
Josh (43:40):
Fort Grant right, Doesn't it end down in Fort?
Nat (43:42):
Grant Stockton Passes.
Josh (43:43):
Stockton Pass.
Nat (43:44):
Stockton Pass is named the campground, so the logistics are
a little tougher on that one.
But you have to go around thebackside of the mountain, you
have to go around the backsideof the mountain.
But what we're going to belooking at when we're kind of
get through some of the workthat's coming up, that's being
done with both crews and our ownwork, is that we'll be aiming
to, you know, sponsor shuttledays, so you don't have to deal
(44:07):
with that.
so oh, that's interesting, soyou go out you go out and you
know, maybe one day, in one day,you absolutely could do the
graham cracker or s'mores.
So you and and then Add onshake and you'd have a 10,000
foot descending day.
Mike (44:25):
Wow, it's a good day yeah.
Josh (44:27):
Yeah, cuz it, can you get picked up at angles, orchard,
and then just drive you back upto to ladybug and you can jump
on shake right there.
Nat (44:33):
Right, I have the van come around and meet you.
Yeah, and the reasons it shakes, shake rides.
Well, so it does.
It ends up in a more remoteplace, but it's a good trail.
So you know, and it's a 3,000foot descent.
Mike (44:49):
Huh, interesting, so, oh.
So what is on the horizon?
As far as you mentioned, youhave some crews helping clear
all this and the next steps.
So Every time you go out,you've got like what kind of
crew?
How many people out therehelping you out?
Nat (45:05):
Yeah, so We've had a number of weekends this summer.
I guess we've been doing themsince well, actually spring
through summer, but I really gotramped up kind of marketing
them more to the public insummer.
So we've had Memorial day, wehad one in June, we just had one
in mid-July and we're gonnahave one in mid-August and then
early September.
So all of those have hadbetween like 10 and 15 people.
Mike (45:28):
There's still room for more help, though, if people
want to sign up.
Nat (45:31):
That's true, absolutely, and you don't you know?
You can actually go out toMount Graham for one night if
you want to.
You could go out for the day.
A day is actually doable, it'sa, it's a pole.
But if you don't have a wholeweekend, you want to go for one
overnight, or come on, do it.
We always provide free campingand we work like, like this
weekend we were gonna be atArcadia campground, which was
(45:52):
gonna be probably in the 90sbecause of this heat wave, oh
yeah so we moved it up toShannon, up to 8900 feet,
because we want.
You know, we want this to be funand we want you to be like okay
, I'm gonna go out there, I'mgonna get out of the heat and
I'm gonna get to do some trailwork and I get to do some riding
and we always ride too it's notjust like we beat you down out
there.
So those are SDMB Leadvolunteer weekends.
(46:15):
But what we've also got goingon is the Forest Service has
funds to recover from the firefry fire and they are allocating
a Variety of resources to gettrails open to do the work.
That's just too big for us andtry to get to a level set.
The idea is here that we getthe trails to a level set so
(46:36):
volunteers, a mix of volunteersand resources from the forest,
can keep up with the maintenancehere over here, so you don't
have the degradation of qualityright.
So what's going on right now,which has happened quite
recently, like just this lastweek, I ended up staying, I did
a volunteer weekend this weekendand then I stayed on Monday to
meet with Some state fire crewsthat had been allocated with
(46:58):
some of this money for the fryfire recovery.
So there's there's 40 peopleout working on the mountain
right now opening up every daythree, three-twelfths a week
twelve a week.
Three twelve is a week.
They're camped out.
Mike (47:15):
Yeah, and it's just for the, the trails that you guys
are working on.
Nat (47:19):
That's in the restoration from the fire so there's a mix
like Arcadia trail they can'twork on because of wildlife
spotted our restrictions Right.
Ladybug is out of the burn scar, so it doesn't count and that's
kind of our baby We've adoptedthat.
It's in good enough shape.
We really don't need crews togo through there.
(47:39):
So then, because this isn't justMount Graham's restoration,
isn't all just about mountainbiking, arrest in DMP or Nat's
wishes, like yeah, we want themountain to be open because it's
important, it's a great placeto go and people miss it so,
like when we had the ability tokind of influence the direction
of these crews, we took feedbackfrom the community and they're
(48:02):
opening web peak loop, which isa trail that's been was severely
burned and has been very hardto keep open.
They just got that cleared outand a section of Ash Creek and
then they're gonna work on whatwe spoke about earlier, the
Grand Hill loops.
Those are not things SDM be issuper focused on now, but they
have value Because when you'reon the upper mountain as just a
few weeks ago, before thesecrews started working, there
(48:23):
weren't many places you could goon a contiguous, short fun hike
without tons of deadfall.
Josh (48:30):
Yeah, and if you go, and if you, if you have bros that
like can't ride the downhillstuff, I just put them on
Grant's loop, right, and theycan like do circles for an hour
and come pick you up at down atAngles Orcher right, right,
exactly, and so We've got crewsworking on that and then in the
fall when the restrictions lift,then we will be getting some
contracted Non-profit resources.
Nat (48:53):
So not government trail crews, but also not for profit,
because the Forest Service hasrules.
You most of the trip.
They either have to be, in Mostcases, government agencies or
pre-approved nonprofits to dothe trail work.
Mike (49:05):
I didn't realize how much coordination really is involved
with these projects, fromgovernment entities to Managing.
Josh (49:12):
This is what I was like when we were talking to Patrick
and Tucker and they're like hey.
This is private land.
We can decide in the morningwhat we want to do in the
afternoon.
Yeah, that can be months andmonths.
Yeah get approval for it.
For it on public land.
Nat (49:26):
Yeah, exactly, and we.
There's also some level ofunpredictability as to when
we'll get the crews, because thetype of work we're having them
do, which is restoration, sothere's a.
There had been some money thatwas allocated to the state crews
to do the restoration, but thenthey were moved off.
They were working on there twoyears ago, then they were moved
off to do thinning work becausethere was more of a demand of
(49:46):
that right.
Josh (49:46):
So what's what's thinning work?
Nat (49:49):
Yeah, thinning work would be going out.
It's proactive versus reactive,so fire management fire
management.
So making sure if there's toomuch fuel which is downed, wood
and debris, you got to get thatout of there and you got to
create these piles that willthat they'll do prescribe
burning on, so they're going outand doing that.
Very cool.
Mike (50:07):
So switching gears a little bit, but related to what
we were talking about here is onSDMB's website.
It talks about and you alludedto this the diversity and
inclusion and this is one of the.
On the outreach committeethere's a call out for folks to
help out on the four differentcommittees.
Sure, and I was.
I was really struck by this.
I like this with.
(50:28):
You're trying to diversify themembership which you talked
about, and it make mountainbiking more attractive To a wide
range of groups.
Yes young people physicallychallenge minorities, special
needs, and then also engaginglike urban youth.
The one that comes to mind islike the hundred acre wood park
in Tucson really cool Handcycle,underserved audiences.
Nat (50:52):
Yeah.
Mike (50:52):
I mean the full gamut that you guys are Trying to
accomplish here is reallycommendable and I think it make
a bit, yeah, make a bigdifference in the community just
on two, you know two wheels.
But it does take, you know,well-designed trails to like
that mentions to attract bothbeginners, intermediate and
advanced riders.
Yep, and I would think that's achallenge you know.
(51:16):
Talk about the coordination bigmountain.
Yeah you know, but but havingsomething for everybody.
So I don't know if you have anythoughts on on that part of the
.
You know the SDMB's mission andthat, but it's pretty cool.
Nat (51:28):
No, no, no.
Thanks for bringing it up.
And and I do, I'm I actually.
You know the way I'm going onabout Mount Graham.
You would think it's just allbig mountain and Dura, mount
Graham.
But that's just one part ofwhat I do and obviously just one
part of SDMB.
And, yeah, I have been involvedin the outreach, diversity and
inclusion committee.
(51:49):
Most of our committees kind offell apart during the pandemic.
So that is one thing I wouldsay, if I may plug while I'm on
here, is we need help on thecommittees.
They fell apart during thepandemic because it was just
hard to get people toparticipate and we need to
rebuild them because we're allvolunteers and the board members
can't do the lift on their own.
So Go to our website.
(52:10):
There's a blog post about thecommittees.
There's a plea to please comehelp us check that out.
Before the committees had kindof Suffered the impacts of COVID
, I had gone on to an outreachdiversity, inclusion committee
meeting and you, yeah, to givethat a little, give you a little
more insight on that.
It was Much like we said.
(52:31):
Our board didn't look like thecommunity.
It's like mountain bikingdoesn't look like the community
right and like there's the samekind of people are riding
mountain bikes.
So how do we do that?
But I thought the thing I likedabout being in that committee
was how do we do that and it notseem contrived or gimmicky?
Right yeah, right.
So it's gotta be genuine right,and that's through recruitment
(52:51):
of folks that you know Do havethe ability to reach folks that
may traditionally not beinvolved or interested in
mountain biking or have accessor whatever.
So we're working.
We've when we had the committeeup and running and we're
rebuilding it.
Now we have folks on thecommittee that are doing that
and we're going out and saying,hey, how can we?
(53:13):
You know, what do you thinkwill interest people that are in
your community or you think areunderserved, and how can we
reach them?
And it may not even be, it maynot even be mountain biking as a
gateway, it may be partneringwith other groups and saying
let's just get into cycling andtry to work with them and Then
invite them for mountain bikingwhen they get more interest.
(53:33):
Right, like so we're thinkingthrough things like that.
One of the things we've done issubsidized mountain bike
instruction, which we think isimproving access.
So I don't know if you've seen,we've been doing beginner
clinics lately, yeah, the bikeskills and a bike Academy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we've been doing that.
So, kent from our board megakudos to him.
That was his idea and that'sbeen like a smash hit right,
(53:54):
nice, you know what's that getthem hooked young?
Yeah, exactly, and it's been,it's been all, it's been all
ages.
I will actually take that back.
I think it is like 12 and up.
So we haven't done youth campsyet, but but we have a.
You know, we have a goodrelationship with El Grupo and
they do stuff like that, yepyeah so Can you?
Can you give me back on topichere?
Josh (54:15):
No, no okay, let me just.
Let me just dive down for asecond.
So so I Think we have somefolks that have been guests that
might be able to help you withthat objective, that have kind
of like their own organizationsin Tucson that are diverse, and
I'm thinking like genuine BMX,and then I'm thinking about ride
Tucson and Jesus from rideTucson.
(54:36):
Yeah so maybe there's somerelationships and maybe we can
plug.
If you guys aren't aren'talready plugged into those guys,
we can help you guys getplugged in and maybe help with
that objective.
Nat (54:43):
Yeah, I feel like everybody knows everybody, but we may not
be asking the right questionfor that particular purpose
right yeah.
Yeah, so that's awesome.
Yeah, and the, and that's thething.
Like you don't have to join theboard, you don't have to give
up your life.
Could you come to a couplecommittee meetings and give us
feedback or guide us if you wantto be on the committee long
term?
Cool.
If not just give us yourthoughts?
Josh (55:05):
How many members do you guys have right now?
Do you know Roughly?
Mike (55:08):
300 ish, Wow yeah it's a big organization, yeah, and the
other part of that on thecommittee is the advocacy.
Yes which I think goeshand-in-hand with what you just
mentioned, sure, and we talkedabout like strategies,
implements, way to promotemountain biking and trails and
and that, and can you talk to usa little bit about where, like
the be cool trail safety andetiquette initiatives?
Nat (55:31):
Yeah, sure, that's been a long-standing campaign of SDM
bees it is.
You know, be cool is the slogan, but I think it's the way I
take it is treat others how youwould want to be treated right
and if you had a mountain bikebarreling down at you and, you
know, buzzed you.
No one wants to be treated thatway.
Josh (55:53):
You're not gonna like the next mountain bike, you see
right, right and and behind.
Nat (55:57):
That is the way we talk about be cool, and the bike
ambassadors are.
We can talk about that too,they're kind of an offshoot of
that.
Yeah that's a newer program, butit's.
It's about Good etiquette, goodbehavior, being cool, right,
yeah, and being a good rolemodel.
Like, hey, mountain bikers slowdown for me, you know, like
(56:18):
they were considerate, they'dyou know, and they do trail work
, like they're promoting thepositive aspects of mountain
biking and and reminding peoplethat they have a Responsibility
on how to behave on the trail.
So we continue to maintain ourgood partnership with the land
managers and fellow users.
Yeah, and I would say, be cool.
Even applies to, you know,don't cut a cattle gate.
Josh (56:41):
Stuff like that, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah for ourlisteners.
What's a cattle gate?
Nat (56:46):
It's a well here that you guys I'm.
I'm not from the Southwest, butthey're called cowboy gates,
right, the ones that are made oflike the sticks and barbed wire
, and essentially they're a Agate that it's pulled over a
section of trail to prevent thecows from getting through.
Mike (57:00):
Yeah, because we have open grazing on some of the yeah the
trailer in some cases will cometo a to a to a to a gate.
Josh (57:06):
That's just basically barbed wire and they'll be like
kind of a it's.
It's a little like I don't knowa rinky-dinky, the way that it
connects, but you have to unhookit, pull it aside, get your
bike through and like, and itcan be a you know.
Mike (57:19):
Close it in five minutes but like you know.
Josh (57:20):
Yeah, open it, Don't damage it.
Yeah, put it back the way youfound it, because it's there for
a reason right, yeah they're.
Nat (57:27):
I mean they're complex right to the new.
If you're not familiar withthem because you got to kind of
stretch this barbed wire, maybeyou know I might might get cut
trying to do that.
But in general, if you'repatient and take the time you
can figure it out.
Yeah, I think it's a next it'sit's one thing to leave it open
because you couldn't figure outor you didn't want to deal with
it.
It's another to just cut itright.
(57:47):
Yeah, don't cut it right.
So yeah that.
That cutting the the cattlegates being uncool, yeah, being
uncool right on.
Mike (57:56):
Favorite part that I have to share on the website was the
compensation.
Nat (58:01):
Oh, yeah, that's a good one .
Mike (58:02):
Yeah, it is the pay, Knowing that you are making to
sound a better place to ride,priceless yeah.
Nat (58:10):
I, I agree with that.
So, yeah, none of us get paid.
Folks work hard, they.
They give a lot of.
I mean, I like on a MountGraham weekend I have people we
tend not to haul the trailerbecause it's just that road
unless you got to bring it.
You don't want to bring thetrailer right.
So, we load up tools in people'scars.
I've got a Compact SUV.
(58:32):
I can get some tools in there.
When we get a bigger crew, Ineed somebody to come by with a
truck.
So people come by with a truck,they load up the easy up, they
load up the tools, they load upthe cooler, like they're making
time right.
And then even people whenthey're out there, because we
want to take care of thevolunteers, especially the
newbies, we're out thereshuttling them, you know.
So there's there's a lot of workor people going up and setting
(58:53):
up the be cool, the be cooltrailer oh, sorry, the be cool
10 at the trail had to to letusers know that mountain bikes,
mountain bikers, want to be aPositive influence on trail use
and tell people about rules ofthe trails.
Another thing would be our bikeambassadors, which is that
programs about two years old now.
So we have.
It's not a patrol, it's justWell, it's a patrol but it's an
(59:15):
enforcement right.
So there's no, you know they'rejust out there to make sure
People know to be cool, aren'tlost If they need directions,
need help, something like that,and also just to kind of keep an
eye on Trail conditions.
Josh (59:29):
They're looking out for the trail, looking out for the
users, exactly.
Nat (59:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah and and yeah.
And trying to like, smile, befriendly, get people stoked, you
know yeah, yeah, how does, howdo you become a trail ambassador
?
You just send an email toPresident at SDM, be do or G,
and you say I'm interested inbeing a trail ambassador and you
(59:53):
will be engaged.
Cool, yeah, you, I mean you'vegot to go through the process,
which?
Is like where do you want to doit?
When can you do it?
You know, huh.
Josh (01:00:02):
What's?
Do you know what the commitmenttime commitment is?
I mean we can look all thisstuff up and play there.
I'm asking you quite on yeah,no, no, no, it's cool but.
Nat (01:00:09):
I, but I'm glad I can speak to most of these things, right?
So we just don't know dead airhere, right?
Yeah so, yeah, if you have aninterest, and most of it's it's
people that they their trails,that they regularly go to or
near their house and they Gopatrol right.
Yeah, so yeah, and it's cooland you get.
Josh (01:00:27):
I think you get a jersey if you, you know yeah, yeah,
we'll put a link to that in theshow.
This is okay.
Mike (01:00:33):
I don't know where I would time, but I do have one more
question.
Josh (01:00:35):
Okay, yeah.
Mike (01:00:35):
Okay, so you you briefly mentioned this before.
So you know, working on thetrails, coordinating all that
but the grant writing, privatesponsorships is that part of
what you do as chair ofdevelopment as well?
Nat (01:00:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've applied for grants and nowI'm like doing the after you
get the grants.
Mike (01:00:55):
There's a whole bunch of you know, admin you need to do
to make sure yeah, right.
Nat (01:01:00):
Yeah, yeah, you're just reporting and like expensing and
all that stuff.
So yeah, I do, I do that.
We're not like a lot of theLike new things we need to big
bucks for have happened, like alot of the trails that were
built, that Tucson Mountain Park, like yeah, that's been done.
So I haven't been doing a tonof that.
But, that's TMP that you referto, right?
(01:01:21):
Yeah, so I'm on part, yeah,yeah, yeah, to some mountain
park TMP.
There were some very big grantsto try to get new construction
done out there, but that's notwhere we're at right now.
We're doing more restoration,right.
And and the money's coming fromother other pots, not ones we're
having to generate.
And grant writing is a lot ofwork, yeah, and a lot of admin
after you get them.
So I Think with me in thefundraising chair once I learned
(01:01:46):
about what grant writing tookunless it was just somebody was
like here, we'll just give yousome money I was like we want to
be very careful about whatgrants we go after and it's
really worth it right.
Sure, yeah, that's yeah, sothere's that and then, yeah, so
I'm also looking at getting withour sponsors and donors and
(01:02:07):
We've had some level oforganization around how we
engage them and and you know,kind of the give and the get,
but that's that.
A lot of things have changedsince that was kind of Really
well designed back in 2017.
Like a lot of that was builtaround a time when, like a
website mentioned matteredpeople Don't you really use
websites anymore.
It's all social media now right,yeah and and then you know we
(01:02:30):
would get into situations likewell, should we ask this person
again now I think we've askedthem too much.
And then we ask, and then wedon't.
We don't include them insomething Like hey, why didn't
you ask?
Development's a funny thing,isn't it right?
Yeah, yeah so with thatsoftware I mentioned earlier
buying, it's like we're gonnatry to digitize.
Like you know, how often dothey want?
Josh (01:02:47):
to be asked.
Nat (01:02:48):
Yeah how do we show gratitude is one of the things
you know.
Like because they're doingstuff for us and we were super
grateful and in most cases theylove us, so like what's the
right level and right?
Josh (01:02:58):
How do we make it a win-win and?
Nat (01:02:59):
let's have it documented who owns the relationship at the
org, you know, and also becausethere's turnover right, we've
got to have that somewhere wherenewcomers can go in and get it.
So yeah, that's part of it,yeah yeah.
Josh (01:03:11):
So hey now, is there anything that we didn't cover,
that you were wanting to cover?
And let me.
I'm gonna ask a question again,but I have something we I don't
think we've talked enough abouthow folks can can sign up to
volunteer.
So so talk us through thatagain.
What's the what's the right wayfor folks to volunteer, either
here in Tucson, with you inMount Graham?
Nat (01:03:32):
And it depends how you want to volunteer, right?
If you are interested in thosecommittees that we talked about
earlier, you can go to SDMBOorgand look at the blog post there,
and that's got all the info youneed on how to get involved in
a committee got you.
If you want to get involved intrail work.
You can follow us on Facebookor on Instagram.
(01:03:55):
We tend to post that stuffthere, right?
We do send out emailsoccasionally, with our events
coming up right.
But I would say, yeah, contactus either through our website,
which has our email, or one ofthe social media channels you
can ask the question or kind ofbrowse through the post there
(01:04:16):
and if you see something, and ifyou don't, then shoot us a note
and we'll get you involved.
Josh (01:04:20):
Yeah, Well, hey, man, on behalf of like all the mountain
bikers in southern Arizona, justthank you and thank your
organization and thank yourvolunteers for all that you're
doing.
Nat (01:04:29):
Yeah.
Josh (01:04:30):
I want to highlight and shout out the the focus on, on,
you know, having a more diverseorganization.
I think that's super noble andI think it's the right thing to
do, and I think it's gonna makethe sport stronger and and grow
faster, which ultimately is whatwe want, because more riders,
you know, more resources, moreeverything.
So yeah super appreciative.
(01:04:50):
Thank you so much, man.
Mike (01:04:51):
You got anything you want to yeah, no, we enjoy the trails
, so thank you, thank you verymuch for all that without
Josh (01:04:57):
you, we'd have nothing to ride.
Nat (01:04:58):
Yeah, yeah, they know our pleasure and you know, please,
the the the best gratitude isgetting involved.
Come out to a trail day, and Iwould say a couple things in
closing.
So we talked a lot about Graham, that graham cracker thing
right now.
This fall it's gonna be, it'sgonna be almost in an ideal
state and in 2024 it absolutelyshould be, and beyond that we're
(01:05:20):
also gonna have this fall.
We do our brushtober thing.
So if you want to stay localand help get the trails
recovered After the monsoonseason, look out for our
brushtober event, which is falltrail maintenance.
Yes, right so so yeah, come joinus and.
Mike (01:05:35):
Yeah.
Nat (01:05:37):
Thanks for riding the trails and, yeah, tell your
friends, get out there, get thestoke.
Mike (01:05:41):
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, thanks you you.
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