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Show Local Cannonville resident Merwin Dunham rigged a special "safety" wagon to attach to his "Rascal" brand electric mobility cart for special rides for his two grandchildren Melissa Barlow, 4 CANNONVILLE "Go Grandpa, Grand-pa, go!" was all two-year-old Louis Barlow could say as Grandpa Merwin Mer-win Dunham stopped to talk with Kodachrome State Park officials about a new Handicapped Accessible Acces-sible Self-Guiding Nature Trail at Kodachrome State Park. Some 20 years ago, the nature trail was the brainchild of Park Manager Tom Shakespeare and former for-mer ranger (now Southwest Region Manager) Gordon Topham. Both are highly pleased at the use the trail is receiving. The trail is one-half mile in length and is self-guiding. There are numbered posts at various sites of interest and a brochure to guide the user through. It is one of six trails at the Park. Representatives of the Americans Ameri-cans With Disabilities organization came to Kodachrome six years ago to review the possibilities of re- Photo By Nancy TwiteheD and brother Louis Barlow, 2. Both youngsters are here visiting from St. George and just wanted Grandpa Dunham to 'hurry up and get going" on their nature ride. First Users Enjoy New Kodachrome Handicapped-Accessible Nature Trail working the trail into a handicap-accessible handicap-accessible way to see more of the park. The concrete trail is colored to match the park's soil. Samples of the local soil at Kodachrome and samples of the cement product used by the contractor were sent to a lab where a perfectly-proportioned tint was developed for the cement. This was an interesting and at times a difficult project for the contractor, con-tractor, Garfield Ready Mix (Bryce Valley Builders) of Cannonville. It took workers some three weeks to pour all the cement sections. The cement truck was able to drive a short way back on the trail but workers generally had to pump the tinted mixture through hoses. The grade of the entire trail could be no more than 5 percent and turnouts were constructed every 200 ft. The entire project took 125 yards of cement. The bill for the major project ; came to $32,000 and was funded by ..' the state of Utah under the ' Americans with Dissabilities Act. This particular trail is near the Oasis group site at Kodachrome and ';' is already receiving excellent com- L; ments from visiting park patrons. Other projects planned at Kodachrome Koda-chrome are restrooms, and a couple of picnic and camping sites. Escalante Esca-lante Petrified Forest State Park, also managed by Shakespeare, will also get a handicapped-accessible nature trail leading patrons into the areas of remaining petrified wood. Shakespear commended Garfield Ready Mix for being very responsible re-sponsible and creating only a minimal impact to vegetation adjacent to the trail site. They also restored much of the area in which they worked and Shakespeare said spring of 1997 will bring the vegetation back even more abundantly. |