HANCOCK COUNTY — The day of work and celebration was designed to get people outside “to leave the trails better than they found them.”
National Trails Day is held the first Saturday of June each year as a day of service for people who love the great outdoors and taking advantage of the nation’s trials.
Locally, at Eagle Station located at South 400W at the Pennsy trail head, a small group of people gathered to plant new trees and plants as well as clean up specific areas, including the Eagle’s nest and enjoy a morning outside.
Mary Ann Wietbrock has spearheaded The Pennsy Trails in Hancock County project and group from the start and organized the morning’s events. The Pennsy Trials in Hancock County was established in 2013 to complete a missing 10.5 miles of the Pennsy Trail in Hancock County.
This included a 2.5-mile gap between Cumberland and Greenfield, and 6 miles east of Greenfield to the county line. Wietbrock noted they are nearly done with the Hancock County section, with only two areas of work left.
The trail group is currently working on raising funds to complete the trail from South 350W to South 400W, and purchase property rights and materials needed to go from South 350W to South 150W, which is considered the next phase of the project.
“We already own the undone section between 350W and 400W,” Wietbrock said. “So now we’re clearing it with volunteers on Tuesdays and we’re raising money for the stone and the asphalt needed to do all of that.”
Wietbrock and several others took advantage of a nice morning Saturday and did some cleaning and planting along the South 400W section of the Pennsy Trail as well as brought some attention to their efforts to finish the county’s section of the state trail.
Wietbrock has been working closely with county officials from the start to get the county’s section of the trail compete and noted they have gotten word from Hancock County engineer Gary Pool that he has secured a grant for the group to purchase the remaining section from South 350W to South 150W. However, nothing official has happened as of yet, but Wietbrock noted it looks like that major piece of the puzzle is close to falling into place.
“We started all of this with a big dream, but you’ve got to start by whittling it a little at a time and that’s what we’ve done and we’re almost done,” Wietbrock said.
The Pennsy Trail of Hancock County project started as a vision over a decade ago with Wietbrock taking the reins getting to know people at the Department of Natural Resources, then making friends with officials in the federal government as well as officials from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
“We’ve also been fortunate with getting great county support and so much help from volunteers like today,” Wietbrock said. “We’ve been talking to bikers and walkers as they come down through here about the trail.”
Toward the trail head, at the next section expected to be worked on, two volunteers, Barb Judge, Greenfield and Jean Gosney, McCordsville were knee-deep, digging and adding new plants to the South 400W trail head which heads east towards the South 350W trail head section and is next to be developed.
“I live over in McCordsville, and I come over here to use this path because it’s a beautiful, uninterrupted paved path,” said Gosney. “There aren’t a lot of paths and trails like this where you can ride your bike safely.”
The ladies noted, riders, runners and walkers can go from the parking lot on South 400W, all the way to Irvington via the trail.
“Theoretically, you can go all the way to the (Indianapolis) Zoo from here,” Judge said. “That would be a heck of a ride.”
Fundraising and awareness is what the team is currently working on so they can get the monies to complete one of the two final sections starting with adding the path from South 350W to South 400W.
“Since we are following the old Pennsylvania and Vandalia Railroad there is existing stone exposed along certain sections,” Wietbrock said. “While we may be using this stone, not removing it, the stone may not be perfect for our base and will still need to be covered by a base layer of appropriate stone.”
It means they’ll have to use specific stone at a cost of about $100 for 10 feet wide by 10 feet in length sections. The hope is to begin working on the South 350W to South 400W section as soon as possible with the cost to clear the path then lay the stone and asphalt estimated at $52,600.
“We really do need the money,” Wietbrock said. “This has been such a great collaboration between volunteers and our county and we are so thankful.”
They are encouraging the community to help by donating funds or volunteering time. For more information on both and the trail in general visit www.PennsyTrails.org.
