Volunteers build trail on Mount Dean Stone

Laura Solem, Cathy Fischer, and Liz Higgins said they volunteered to help build the new Spur trail on National Public Lands to give back to the public lands they use every day to get outside, Sept. 30, 2017.

Josh Page of Montana Conservation Corps works to flatten the new Spur trail on National Public Lands Day, Sept. 30, 2017. MCC has been working on the trail since spring. Unlike the more remote trails MCC crews work on where they don’t sleep in beds for almost the entire summer, the spur trail’s proximity to Missoula gave the crew the option of staying in the city or camping at the trail.

Five Valley’s Land Trust’s operations director, Alina McCue and her two sons, Cooper and Wyatt, take a break from clearing the Spur trail on National Public Lands Day, Sept. 30, 2017. The bottom part of the trail is old growth forest with moss that then turns into prairie habitat as the trail climbs almost 1300 feet to the top of the Spur.

Volunteers work on the top half of the new Spur trail which faces towards Pattee Canyon for National Public Lands Day on Sept. 30, 2017. The top half of the Spur trail is the most intact fescue habitats or prairie like land with bunch grass, in Missoula according to Rob Bell, a maintenance tech assistant with Missoula Parks and Recreation. Bell is most excited to mountain bike on the trail when it hopefully opens to the public next spring.