Trails of Big Canoe: Red Trillium Access
Last week the Trails Committee resurrected a trail connecting Red Trillium Ridge at Wildcat to the Red Loop. Up until 2 weeks ago the Trails Committee had no idea this trail even existed.
The background
In the early 2000s, when Bill Byrne was developing the Wildcat neighborhood, he not only put in the paved paths we are familiar with like the Red Loop, but also added a mulched path connecting Red Trillium Ridge to the Red Loop. He was in charge of all the trails and paved paths at Wildcat until a few years later when he turned the green spaces over to the POA. Then those trails became the responsibility of the POA and the Trails Committee. That mulched path, however, had fallen into disuse by then, became overgrown, and the Trails Committee knew nothing about it.
The new trail is on the map now. The updated brochure can be downloaded from this site.
The residents of Red Trillium had been accessing the paved Red Loop and Blue Loop paths by walking on the road and crossing Wildcat Parkway to join the Red Loop further out where it crosses another road. With the new rules prohibiting pedestrians on Wildcat Pkwy, the residents needed a solution and contacted the Trails Committee.
The trail joins the Red Loop to the right of a property owner’s path at marker 8. The marker is not visible in this image, but is just to the left of the picture.
After looking at green space and property maps for Wildcat, they went onsite to look at options and that’s how they found what was left of the old path. According to the neighbors, some would use it in the winter when the vegetation had died back.
The start of the trail at the street is lined with logs to make it more obvious.
Issues with erosion have been addressed with a channel cut across the trail to prevent the water flowing from the left side from continuing down the footpath.
This looks like a proper trail!
So members of the committee set out to make it usable again.They cut back the vegetation, addressed the erosion by creating a channel across the path to keep the water from flowing down the trail, evened out the surface, removed obstacles and defined the edges.
The trail joins the Red Loop next to the path at marker 8 where a thoughtful resident keeps dog bowls filled with fresh water.
The trail starts on the right of the road as you go on Red Trillium Ridge, past Red Trillium Lane.
The team, L-R: Bill Merrick, Liz Scherer, Ignacio Leon, Pete Stahlman and Terry Stewart. Terry is also a volunteer firefighter and a candidate to the POA board for 2022.