Friends of Nevada Wilderness worked on restoring an illegal vehicular trespass along the beginning of the North Twin trail in the Arc Dome Wilderness. There were eight Friends of Nevada Wilderness volunteers and staff along with a Forest Service employee working on the project.The volunteers camped at Spencer Hot Springs Friday night and met up with the District Ranger and seasonal employee of the Austin-Tonopah Ranger District Saturday morning at the project site. The crew scattered rocks and transplanted sagebrush and native plants from the surrounding environment along half of the two-track, leaving a single tread path open for hikers and stock. The rocks and vertical mulching helped to disguise the trespass, while also helping to speed up natural reveggetation and allow for seed collection. The volunteers were careful to totally avoid the archaeological sites, where there are old stone structures from many years ago. The volunteers worked transplanting native plants onto the route and scattering and placing rocks in a manner that would discourage motorized vehicles from trespassing, then placed a couple of carsonite signs. One sign was placed at the beginning of the trail where there is now an established turnaround and parking area for vehicles, indicating that from that point in the area is closed to motorized vehicles, and the other sign was installed further in to indicate the wilderness boundary.
After the route restoration work was completed, the volunteers hiked up the South Twin River trail to an old abandoned barbed-wire fence and removed the wiring and some of the posts. The wire and materials were left in a pile to be carried out safely at a later date.
*There were a total of 138 volunteer hours recorded for this project.
*There was a total of $2,070 saved through the use of volunteers that the U.S. Forest Service would otherwise have had to spend on in-kind labor. (Based on government protocol $15.00/hr)
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