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When Conservationist John Olmsted Stumbled Across the Excelsior

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When Conservationist John Olmsted Stumbled Across the Excelsior INDEPENDENCE“ “A local realtor, Joe Day . took me down to look at the land, and there was this abandoned mining flume, and it was totally level, and it was already built, and Sierra Club wouldn’t have TRAIL to oppose it, and there was Gay Blackford’s trail.” “ –John Olmsted, conservationist When conservationist John Olmsted stumbled across the Excelsior Canal while hiking near the south fork of the Yuba River in 1969, he knew he’d found the place he’d been looking for. For years he had kept in the back of his mind the request of a friend, Gay Blackford, who had Multiple Sclerosis: ‘Find me a level trail in the mountains.’ Built to carry water from the South Yuba River to the hydraulic mines of Smartsville, the canal included a berm and several flumes that crossed steep terrain. The level grade of the ditch made it an ideal place for a wheelchair accessible trail. By 1975, Olmsted and his then-wife Sally Cates began buying property along the trail and restoring the canal. They worked on a shoestring budget and recruited volunteers from all over California. The result was the Independence Trail, the first Hiking the Independence Trail The Independence Trail includes three miles of wheelchair accessible wheelchair accessible wilderness trail in the terrain following the Yuba River Canyon. In this photo, John Olmsted United States. guides Jeff Rondoni and Ian Gayton of the Newcastle School for Exceptional Children on a nature walk. Beginning in 1987, students from the Newcastle School held annual campouts along the trail. Photo by Hank Meals. Closer to Nature The Independence Trail provides numerous opportunities to see, smell, taste, touch, and hear the outdoors. In this photo from 1987, Geff Curtis inspects blossoms along the trail. “We went around to BLM and State Parks and stuff proposing that Photo by Hank Meals. this be a public park with wheelchair access, which was really—you have to understand, at that time the only place a wheelchair could even get in a restroom in all of this whole western Nevada County “ was Denny’s. That was the only place. I mean, it’s not like today where disability access is really widespread and everybody has been “exposed to it. Back then, you were really, really limited if you were physically limited in terms of going places. And we had gone around to the different park agencies and tried to sell them on this trail idea, and they really slammed the door in our face.” –Sally Cates, conservationist Background: A Flume on the Independence Trail Now part of the South Yuba River State Park, the Independence Trail is maintained through a partnership between the California Department of Parks and Recreation and Sequoya Challenge. Photo by Tammy Veralrud..
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