Cove Hollow Trail Workday

Co-hosted volunteer day a success!

The Shawnee National Forest's Mississippi Bluffs Ranger District and the Shawnee Mountain Bike Association co-hosted a trails workday on Saturday, May 3, 2008. This dedicated group of volunteers completed re-alignment work on the Cove Hollow Trail in Jackson County, Illinois.

The realignment project was on the north end of the multiple use hiker/equestrian Cove Hollow Trail. The volunteers included members of the Shawnee Mountain Bike Association, the Shawnee Sierra Club, the Order of the Arrow Boy Scouts, Southern Illinois University - Saluki Volunteer Corps and families who adopted a trail or a trailhead and Mississippi Bluffs' volunteer coordinator, Kelly Pearson. The 17 volunteers worked together for four hours to construct approximately 200 feet of new trail, re-routing it from a vertical steep slope to a more horizontal side trail location.

If you are in southern Illinois and want to take advantage of the work completed by this dedicated group of volunteers, go south from Murphysboro on State Route 127 in Jackson County, then east on Dutch Ridge Trail until you reach the Cove Hollow Trailhead.

The volunteer programs to maintain and construct trails on the Shawnee National Forest help connect citizens to the land.