((PKG))  HEYWARD COMMUNITY FOREST TRAILS  
((Banner:  A Community Forest)) 
((Reporter:  Martin Secrest))
((Camera:  Philip Alexiou, Martin Secrest))  
((Editors:  Philip Alexiou, Martin Secrest)) 
((Map:  Charlottesville, Virginia))  
((Main character:  1 male))   
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Popup Banner))   
A community forest was recently acquired by the city of 
Charlottesville, with a donation from the landowner and the 
help of a federal grant.)) 
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia))     
I'm deputized to go out and buy land in the city, maybe just 
at the city limits, in order to construct a trail system, while 
this land, this is now the community's forest effectively.   
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia))     
We ask, would you rather the trail be on this side of the 
hollow or that side of the hollow or should we build two 
trails?  And the community is already heavily involved.  The 
trails you see behind me were built by volunteers.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
LetÕs go right up here.  I think thereÕs good rock stuff.  Not 
very far.   
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
One of the bits of trail maintenance is to let them settle for a 
while.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
So, here's an example where the hill used to come across 
like this and we have cut in the back, made the flat surface, 
so you're running this way.  And then you lay that piece 
back, so the water still wants to come down and this trail still 
slopes outward just enough that water keeps going like that.  
This is a very good example section of where they had to 
come along here with their picks and pick into the hillside. 
And you can see they cut through a root here and then you 
lay it out flat.  And then once it's in here, this could be here 
for 50 to 100 years as long as it's stable and drains well 
and that's our goal.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
This is a section here where we will be building a trail around 
and up into that hollow.  You can see we've started laying 
out the pink flags.  It's generally pretty easy to tell volunteers 
spread out along that line of pink flags.  By the end of the 
day, you connect all those dots and you have one 
continuous trail.  Had the COVID not hit, we would probably 
have most of the trails built now.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
We had a big blowdown storm come through here two 
weeks ago.  When this tree decides to fall across the trail, 
this is when I come out or some of our crew members and 
we would just cut through enough that people can walk 
through it.  And they also offer an opportunity for 
education.  We can interpret these tree rings and you can 
say, ÒOkay, this is an 80-year-old tree.Ó  Some of the trees 
we cut are about this big around.  So, you know, what we'd 
probably do is use one of those really big ones.  The bad 
thing is we have to cut through trees that are about this big 
around every so often.  So, we might as well use them for 
education.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
Just behind me and down the hill is the small city of 
Charlottesville.  ThereÕs about 50-thousand people in the 
city.  You'll see how this looks a lot like a trail.  ItÕs going to 
look a lot more like a trail very soon.  This will become 
the off-road bicycle-jog-hike up here.  You've got this lovely 
creek next to you.  
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Chris Gensic, Parks and Trails Planner, Charlottesville, 
Virginia)) 
So, the final step here is to open the front door to all of these 
woods to the big community down the hill, get them to start 
coming up here and enjoying it for swimming, for hiking, 
learning about nature.  And that's really what the point of all 
of this kind of stuff is in the end, is creating a public space for 
people to come do those things.  
((NATS))