Klemgard trail sees repairs in tight fiscal year

The echo of hammering pings through the hillside pine forest above the flat part of Klemgard Park on Union Flat Creek.

A half mile hike up the trail through the steamy, green undergrowth reveals county park ranger Dave Mahan working on a long, wooden bridge.

Mahan and park volunteers have been packing supplies uphill for a half mile to repair this bridge for the past two weeks.

Park ranger Dave Mahan drills in a hole on the new bridge at Klemgard, with the help of volunteer, Justin Juneau. Most supplies for the 24-foot bridge were hiked in.

Like other county departments, the county parks department faces a tight financial year. The bridge construction project is just one more example of staff stretched thin.

The department has four full-time staffers and one and a half seasonal employees. Several maintenance projects have been on hold during the tight financial year, said park department director Tim Myers.

When the park budget passed last year, Myers publicly said it was a temporary fix. Actual operation of all the county parks couldn’t function on that tight of a budget for more than a year. Many maintenance projects were put on hold until the department could get more funding, he said.

With two full-time rangers, the department manages four county parks and two trails.

In a normal year, Mahan said, he and the other park ranger would have two more full-time summer seasonals capable of completing other parts of park upkeep while the rangers put their time into bigger, more complicated projects like the bridge.

As it stands, Mahan and park volunteers have been nailing together the 24-foot-long bridge to traverse a ravine cut into the hill by a stream.

The trail crosses the stream about halfway up the steep part of trail on the west end of the Klemgard trail. The trail starts at the bridge across Union Flat Creek and loops up to the top of the hillside along the south side.

The old bridge, a cedar log, held the weight of trail users for more than 35 years, said Myers. Mahan said designing and building the bridge on the hill has required some planning because of the requirement to pack in the right materials to the site.

Because the bridge is located on a narrow trail a half mile up a steep hill, he and the volunteers have had to pack most supplies in on their backs.

A team of parks staff, park board members and other volunteers packed in more than 20 sacks of concrete last week.

The hardest part, he said, is getting a few hours into a work day on the hill and realizing you have forgotten some crucial tool for the construction.

“I have to plan ahead quite a bit,” he said, drilling a hole for a screw into the base of a railing.

The department still has an active call out for volunteers. Staining picnic tables, maintaining trails, splitting firewood and controlling weeds are a few examples of maintenance work that will fall by the wayside this summer without the regular staff to help.

“We’re still looking for volunteers,” Myers said.

Maintenance of the trails will also be put on hold this year because the job is usually done by summer staffers who are not on the payroll this year.

Some segments of the trails are supported by wooden side walls, and keeping those walls erect requires regular maintenance, Myers said.

“As those start to fail, if we don’t get them fixed before they actually fail, then they can wash out,” he explained.