Over the course of the past several months, especially with COVID-19 hovering and bringing us relentless malaise, it has become clear that living in this gorgeous area has been a blessing beyond words. There are many reasons we choose to live in the fourth largest state with just over a million inhabitants: we love the great outdoors and we love having all the beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, ponds, meadows - and so much more - to roam.
With the long, long, long and cold winter finally behind us, and the ice rink at Seeley Lake Elementary and Yurt at the Nordic Ski Trails stored away for the summer, the ROCKS team has turned their focus to everyone’s other favorite outdoor activities - walking, hiking and mountain biking in our pristine and scenic area.
The spring cleanup of the Lakeview Trail and the Placid Lake all-access trail brought the ROCKS team together with a fantastic and hardworking group of local high schoolers during Community Discovery Day. The students got well acquainted with the trail system as they raked and removed debris and noxious weeds and helped with preparation for the eventual construction of a jackleg fence. I’m not sure who had the most fun but certainly the students did more than their share of the work. It was a great generational reminder to all of us what kind of magic can happen whenever our local students and teachers are involved.
ROCKS board members Trace Stone, Shelby Holmes, Alan Davis, Jim Fulton and Dave Lewis deserve a ton of credit for all the hard work and organizing they did to pull off Community Discovery Day with Seeley-Swan High students. Although if you talk to them, I think you’d hear that the fun of sharing that outdoor work experience with our energetic local teens more than compensated for the work.
The day was definitely a win-win for the community. In addition to getting some important spring cleanup and summer prep work done, it was enormously satisfying to see our younger community members discover the trails, some of them for the first time, and for ROCKS to gain a team of trails ambassadors in the process.
If the ROCKS work sounds like as much fun to you as it is to our Board, I encourage you to contact me to join our team. We help our local skiers have a great warming hut, our many skaters enjoy a lighted outdoor rink and our hikers find trails that are not only beautiful but also inclusive with all access. We always welcome more helping hands so if you are interested in finding some healthy and mostly outdoors volunteering, please contact me: garryswain@gmail.com.
With the Fourth of July right around the corner and the Farmers Almanac pointing toward a delightfully warm summer, it’s time to shake off the winter cobwebs, lace up the hiking / biking shoes and hit the trails!
See you out there!!
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