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Other Desert Cities Continues Gets Thumbs Up Page 3
Our Comprehensive Calendar Includes Something for Everyone
At least a hundred runners showed up for Paint the Town 5k
PageS 12 & 13
Garden Tour Features Grotto and More This Friday Page 21
J u l y 1 0 , 2 0 1 3 • V o l . 6 • N o . 2 8 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
read about it on PaGe 7
Trail Gets Makeover, New Name Osberg Ridgeline Trail Dedicated STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
G COURTESY PHOTO
Amazing Trout Sculpture to Mark Hunger Coalition’s Tenth
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BY KAREN BOSSICK
epresentatives of The Hunger Coalition have been sorting through cans of food for weeks now trying to determine what will go into making a tasty looking trout. Now they’re ready to put it all together for the public to eyeball. Representatives of the Coalition will be constructing a 10-foot-tall trout sculpture out of cans of food on Thursday in the Ketchum Town Square Plaza next to Starbucks. There will be music by the Kim Stocking Band from 6 to 8 p.m., as well as other surprises. The public is challenged to guess the number of cans that make up the sculpture. Participants can wager their guess through the coalition’s Facebook page or during the celebration. The winner will get a prize. There also will be a “Fill the Fish” raffle fundraiser with a chance to win Fly Fishing 101 lessons from Silver Creek Outfitters, a $100 gift certificate from Boca restaurant and other prizes. The idea is to celebrate The Hunger Coalition’s tenth anniversary and to raise awareness about hunger in Blaine County, said Director Jeanne Liston. “You’ll have to see the trout to believe it!” she said. The Hunger Coalition kicked into high drive with the recession that began to be felt in a big way in 2008. It still serves clients who have suffered fallout from the recession, many of whom are 50 and older and have difficulty finding work or work that pays well enough to supply their needs. The Hunger Coalition also offers a Summer Food program that serves lunches from 11 a.m. to noon weekdays for children 18 and younger. This year for the first time it is offering a Sack Lunch Program for food-insecure youth participating in summer camps in partnership with the Blaine County Recreation District, YMCA and Atkinsons’ Park. For more information, call 208-788tws 0121.
loria Moore Osberg has hiked plenty of famous trails, including the Chilkoot Trail that served miners heading to the Yukon goldfields in the 1890s. Perhaps, one day, the Osberg Ridgeline Trail will be as familiar to those who hike around the Sun Valley area. Trail crews just finished a major makeover of what was formerly known as Trail 142. It was renamed the Osberg Ridgeline Trail in a ceremony last Wednesday at the trailhead, which sits adjacent to the trailhead for Baker Lake. Osberg wrote “Day Hiking Near Sun Valley” in 1987— one of the first hiking guides for the Sun Valley area. She followed that up with “Easy Hikes Around Sun Valley.” She donated the proceeds from both to the Idaho Conservation League. Osberg has had to use a wheelchair since breaking her hip. But that didn’t prevent her from rolling up to the trailhead Wednesday morning and snipping a red ribbon that was strung across it. She snipped so fast that her friends asked her to repeat the ribbon cutting not once, but multiple times, so they could capture it on their Smartphones. “This is probably our flagship trail now,” Kurt Nelson, district ranger for the Ketchum Ranger District, told the group of 30 people and five dogs. The group included
Osberg’s family, Sawtooth National Forest Supervisor Becky Nourse, representatives of several conservation groups and Osberg’s former hiking buddies. Renaming a trail for someone is not something the Forest Service does every day. But it did this time at the request of the Idaho Conservation League in honor of Osberg’s philanthropy and the way her books have inspired people to get out and hike. “The Wood River Land Trust and Idaho Conservation League approached us and asked if we would consider dedicating a trail for Gloria. This seemed like the perfect trail to honor her with because it was near a cabin she and John had built near Newman Creek in 1998,” said Nelson. The trail had fallen into “bad, bad disrepair,” added Nelson. It featured 30 percent and 40 percent grades, and trail bikers had left it rutted and sandy. “Four years ago I hiked my bike and cursed the condition of this trail,” said Nelson. “It was supposed to be my fun time, but it was not, as it had been built back in the Civilian Conservation Corps era and was not user friendly at all.” Youth crews supervised by the Ketchum Ranger District and an Idaho Trails Association crew put in a full summer last year working on the trail. They obliterated four miles of the trail, replacing that section with a trail with a more sustainable grade. They raised a section of trail out of the mud and they built a bridge across the creek.
continued, page 20
TOP: Gloria Moore Osberg shows off the new sign for the trail. MIDDLE: A new bridge helps hikers keep their feet dry. ABOVE: Yellow lupine contrast with the dark pines in the distance as the trail climbs.