High on Peavine's hillside

Maggie O'Neill

Today, Peavine Mountain boasts a subtle new look.

A 6.5-mile component of a 36-mile route, dubbed the Halo Trail for the way it's envisioned to encircle Peavine, is done.

Most people visiting Peavine won't notice the new single-track trail gracefully meandering along its southeast side.

But the mountain bikers, U.S. Forest Service employees and Nevada Conservation Corps trail staff that worked on it will.

"You build 6.5 miles, and it takes a lot of time," said Dale Beesmer, president of the Poedunks, a mountain bike club that worked for the trail's development. "This trail is going to mean a good quality two-hour ride that is easily accessible to our northwest neighborhood. It's also going to be kind of a destination trail."

The trail not only brings the mileage of non-motorized trails at Peavine to 22, it also formalizes hopes to expand the non-motorized trail network at Peavine. The trail is only open to hikers, bikers and equestrians -- no motorized riders.

"I certainly hope there are more (of these trails)," said Randy Meyer, vice president of the Poedunks. "I think the main thing is we're focused on the natural surface, single-track trail. Peavine right now is full of remnant Jeep roads and stuff that was (left) from mining exploration, and a lot of the ATV users have gone in there and re-created their own social trails."

"We do want the trails, but we don't want to see the trails going in that way," Meyer said.

Right now, 110 miles of motorized trails exist on Forest Service land at Peavine.

A view of the city

One feature of the new 6.5-mile segment is that it's unobtrusive. Hikers can walk by it and not even notice it for its subtle travel around sage, brush, and rocks.

Its non-straightaways mean that mountain bikers will be kept from gaining too much speed downhill. The trail ride lasts longer because of this, and hikers and equestrians are safer on the trail when encountering cyclists.

"You're out of the city, but you can look back at it," Beesmer said.

The trail also takes natural habitat into consideration. Planners rerouted a segment in the middle portion when its travels through Altered Andesite Buckwheat were discovered. This buckwheat is considered a species of concern by the U.S. Forest Service, according to Lee Turner, a restoration ecologist and board member with the Poedunks. The buckwheat grows in clay soil that has been superheated to a yellow or white color.

Trail builders with the Nevada Conservation Corps completed the trail during the past two years, but the planning took much longer. Funding for the trail building came through a state trails grant the Poedunks applied for. The Nevada Conservation Corps trail crew laid the first mile in 2008 and finished in December 2009.

"They finished up a day before it snowed," Beesmer said.

The work would have taken years to be done by volunteers, he said. The Poedunks have done a fair share of volunteer work on Peavine and have developed a working relationship with the Forest Service.

Since few trees are on Peavine, it makes one wonder why the area is managed by Forest Service and not Bureau of Land Management.

"The short story about that land up there was that it was BLM land, and in 1988 there was the National Forest and Public Lands of Nevada Enhancement Act, which did a land transfer," said Kevin Wilmot, recreation engineering lands and minerals staff officer for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. "Some Forest Service land went to BLM and some BLM land went to Forest Service. The Forest Service does manage quite a variety of lands in the National Forest Service system that aren't all forested. There are a variety of lands and grasslands that National Forest does manage. So, it's not what people typically think of all the time."

Invitation time

For now, spring presents an inviting time for people to go and experience the trail. Sunflowers are sprouting on some of Peavine's curves, a white stone 'R' embedded on the hillside and rivaling the well-known and nearby 'N' is there for discovery, and the trail is close by -- accessible from the West Keystone Canyon Trailhead near North McCarran, as well as off of Hoge Road.

The trail is moderately difficult and can take two to three hours to complete on a mountain bike. When included as part of a 12.4 mile clockwise loop that comes back down through Keystone Canyon, the trail rises 2,369 feet in elevation.

"You're consistently going up and down," Beesmer said. "It's challenging. You get a good workout. "

To be clear, this loop on the southeast face is not the loop envisioned as the complete 36-mile Halo Trail loop.

The hope is that that trail will be a "full circle, single-track trail (around Peavine) that is going to provide people each of their own little trail areas," Beesmer said. "It will basically be a backbone for different people around the mountain. You'll have certain ways to access that trail. It's a concept that will promote other loops and stuff all around."

No one can see when the full Halo Trail will be complete, but the facts are on the hillside at Peavine -- the first steps have been taken.

"Maybe the publicity of this first segment will get more people to join us and help the cause and make it go faster," Beesmer said. "We don't have a final (date for completion), but it will take a number of years, definitely, probably, five or 10 years out."

Source: http://www.rgj.com/article/20100513/LIV/5130301

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