Volunteers of High Bonanza Community Access recently joined forces for the Annual Stewardship and Winter Recreation Cleanup Day, ringing in the new season with a spring cleaning of their beloved trails.
In just one day, 12 good Samaritans worked together to fill more than 50 bags of trash in the Bonanza Flat area. What started informally, with local residents picking up trash as the flood of winter recreationists began to let up, has evolved into a collective effort to promote environmental stewardship and neighborly connection.
“This is something we all would be doing anyways, and we decided to make it a bit more formal, bring everyone together to do it on the same day and make it more of a community thing,” said Robert Powel, president of the High Bonanza Community Access nonprofit.
The cleanup route stretched roughly six miles and covered key access points and recreation areas, including the Mid-Mountain, Empire Pass and the Bonanza Flat trailheads. According to Powel, the Mid-Mountain Trailhead alone yielded the majority of the waste.
“It’s a multiuse area. You have both state parks, you’ve got Park City conservation land, private property and then you also have little bits of federal land, too. And so in terms of users, it’s every stripe of recreation up there,” said Powel.
With the area a variety of stewards, property owners and users sharing the area, the heavy winter traffic generates a significant amount of waste and makes responsibility for cleanup difficult to assign to any single group.
“Those who come help out are usually a combination of people with a sincere personal connection to the area, be it usership or property ownership,” said Powel.
Powel grew up in the Brighton Estates neighborhood and has been connected to the area for most of his life. For Powel, the cleanup is also a way to unite people around a shared love for the trails and to reconnect with each other after a hectic winter.
“The biggest thing is that people are really excited and happy to do it because it brings us together. It’s a great way to catch up with other people who also care for the area. And then it’s also just exciting and fun,” he said.
The groups get into friendly rivalries over who discovered what in the piles of trash and connect on some of their more surprising finds beneath the snow melt. In the massive collection of trash, volunteers declared the fishing lures to be the most unexpected item found, given that there are no fish at the pass.
Alongside a unique 1960s hubcap and some useful voile straps, the most prolific waste problem is dog bags, said Powel. In addition to collecting trash, volunteers coordinated to haul recyclables and scrap metal out of the area for proper disposal. As a nonprofit, the mission is more than providing a service, but ensuring they are doing everything to care for and conserve the area, said Powel.
“It was a very positive day,” he said. “We really got a lot done.”