Clean Trails Projects

We completed our final project for the year last weekend. The reason it is our last project is because we ran into a scaley friend, a 3 foot rattlesnake, luckily it was not active and we were able to work around it but now is the time for them to wake up and start moving, so we will have to wait until next fall for our projects to resume. Our latest venture included weeding the entrance to Thunderbird Park, trail maintenance on 2 trails and building about 150ft of rock wall along the roadway. We had 7 crew members out for the project and we worked a total of 14 hours combined. I want to thank Lisa, Nicole, Matt, Justin, Dana and Steve for their help and hard work. Take a look at some of our pictures and if you live in the area and want to participate, don't hesitate to contact us.

Our 2nd project this "season" included trash pick up and building a small rock wall around a new picnic area at Thunderbird Park as well as a rock wall along the entrance to the picnic area. We had 6 Team members participate and we put in 12 total hours. We ended up with 2 LARGE bags of assorted trash, Thanks Lisa and Lauren, and over 100 feet of rock walls and borders. I want to also thank Bear, Justin and Matt for their help with the rock wall, without their help and support none of this would have happened.

Our next project is scheduled for Saturday, February 28th with the details of the project TBD. If you are interested in participating, please send me an email via our contact page, we would love to have you join us!

The weather has finally cooperated and we had our first project of the year last weekend. Although we only had 4 members turn out this time we were able to accomplish our goals. We contact the local park ranger, Charlie Hixon, and he asked for our help in clearing the overgrown brush in a local bird viewing area of Thunderbird Park in Glendale, Arizona. The bird viewing area is situated near a man made lake and is home to many winter visitors like migrating ducks, egrets, herons and many other species of birds. We worked for about 2 hours and removed the overgrown bushes and trees from the viewing area. Visitors now have a wide open view of the lake and can see almost 100% of the lake, givng them a comfortably setting for viewing the local and mirgratory birds in the area. The "pile" of brush and limbs we removed measured about 20 ft long x 10ft wide x 10 feet tall, quite an accomplishment for the 4 of us. I want to thank my broher, Jerry, my son Christopher and his friend Justin for their help!

Our next project is scheduled for Saturday, January 10, 2009 with trail restoration and trash pick up as part of our project. If you are in the area and would like to participate, call me at 602-326-2262, we would be glad to include you in our group!

Our final Trail Project of the year was a great success! We had another great turnout, thanks in part to the ASU Really Aware & Devoted Recycling group who showed up with 8 members! We did the trash thing again as well as some bush and shrub trimming along the fence line on the west end of the park. We filled 3 extra large trash bags with trash and another 3 bags of trimmings. In addition the trash pick up we also cleared the entrance to the H1 trail in the far east end of the park and filled 8 extra large bags with trimmings from shrubs, trees and a few cacti and did some trail work as well. Our total hours for this project were 32.5 hours, our most productive in the last year. For the year we donated 104.5 hours to the City of Glendale, mostly in the Thunderbird Park area. I want to take this time to thank everyone who worked with us the last year and to say I look forward to getting back to work next fall when the snakes go to sleep for the winter.

Here are the people who donated their time on our projects in 2007 - 2008. Family & friends: Jerry Hillery, Laruren Hillery, Lisa Smith, Chris Hillery, Justin Hale, Mike & Meena Bryan and my wife Bonnie. ASU RAD group - Terra Ganem, Lissa Regets, Arianna Peterson, Jessica Katz, Russell Latterman, Katie Blancha, Jenna Dillon, RJ Watson, Jill Carle, Christopher Fennessey, Daniel Valenza, Mark Appleton and Andrew Rigazio.

Their help and dedication makes this part of our business the most rewarding for me. I would not be able to accomplish what I want to without the help of these dedicated people, so THANKS for your help and see you next fall!

We just completed a project on January 26th at Thunderbird Park in Glendale, Arizona. We had our biggest turnout ever with 13 members participating. We had the usual family members, brother, son, wife and niece AND a great group of hard workers from the ASU Ready Aware Devoted Recycling organization. We provided almost 30 man hours of work trimming trees, bushes and picking up trash. Take a look at some pictures from our latest adventure.