Anza National Historic Trail
Volunteer's work assures access to nature
By Kathleen Vandervoet
Shaded by mature cottonwoods, mesquites and scattered oaks and acacias, the 
Anza Trail that parallels the Santa Cruz River is a great place for a stroll or a fast-paced walk. Its full name, the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, might lead one to think it’s kept up by the National Park Service or some other government agency. But in Tubac and Rio Rico, the trail is maintained by the volunteer members of the Anza Trail Coalition of Arizona, Santa Cruz Trail Management Council.
Glenn Vierra is the local coalition’s assistant trail boss, and spends countless hours assuring the level dirt pathway stays open, removing fallen trees or branches and rebuilding footbridges when high water sweeps them away. He and Mike Burns, trail boss, are volunteers who keep a careful watch over the status of the trail. “I really like working on the trail. It’s been really fun. And right now we’re just enjoying the good weather,” Vierra said during an interview in the last week of January. “Now is when we’re looking at getting people on the trail to help us clean it up.” 
The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail is a 1,210-mile historic route from Nogales, Ariz., to San Francisco, Calif. In 1752, a Spanish presidio, or fort, was built in Tubac and Anza was the commander. A few years later, he led two overland expeditions, taking several hundred colonists with him, to the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the founding of San Francisco, in 1776.
If volunteers didn’t go out and clean up the trail, Vierra was asked, how long would it stay passable? He replied, “Probably a year. Some sections will go completely closed in a year; it grows that fast. Not the entire trail, but some sections.” For maintenance purposes, the Anza Trail Coalition owns two “gators,” which are OHVs, or Off Highway Vehicles, a tractor and a chain saw. The group bought them used from a former Tubac resident who gave them a good deal, Vierra said. Vierra, 64, and his wife, Annette, retired to Tubac in 2004 from American Canyon in Napa County, Calif. She had visited frequently since her brother, Dennis Kizerian, owns the Tubac Trailer Tether. Vierra served in the U.S. Navy’s Submarine Force for 23 years, and before retirement was a computer support technician for Kaiser Foundation, he said.
Now, he plays a key role in the trail maintenance, and since he’s retired, his efforts mesh smoothly with those of Mike Burns’. “Mike is the reason we have the Anza Trail. I mean, the organization allows for the trail, but Mike built it.” Burns is a paramedic with LifeNet medical helicopter service and also works for the Rio Rico Fire District. “Mike’s very busy,” Vierra said. “I never know when the phone is going to ring. He’ll say, ‘I got the day off today, or we’ve got a few hours.’ And literally, he’ll say, ‘The bridge is out.’ I’ll say, ‘When do you want to work on it?’ He says, ‘Now.’” Assuring access to the Anza Trail includes removing fallen branches or fallen trees, re-building the two footbridges that cross the river, and carrying out debris and trash. Also, the river changes its course in some places every year so the trail has to be modified to accommodate that. “Mike and I keep the trail open, but we use a lot of volunteers to clean the trail. We clear the heavy stuff, the trees, whether we use a tractor or chain saws. But then we need people to help us to pick up the trash and to cut the small branches. We’ve had some large work parties, about 20 people.” Members of the Anza Trail Coalition respond to calls for volunteers. And Vierra said local teenagers have also stepped in, most notably the Interact Club from Rio Rico High School. “They are really amazing. What impresses me the most about them is their organization. They’ve selected their leader and he tells them what to do and they do it. They work and they laugh and they just have such a great time. “What they’ve done that I’m aware of is some really big projects down at the river east of the Barrio de Tubac. They’ve spent hours and we’ve loaded bags of trash and tires and we’ve done it three times with them. They work really hard,” Vierra said.
Rio Rico resident Richard Williams, past president of the Anza Trail’s Santa Cruz County Trail Management Council, said Vierra “is an excellent worker and volunteer for the coalition. He’s a great guy and always helpful and cheerful. He’s very positive about what he does for the trail.” 
Keeping the two footbridges in place across the river is an integral part of trail work. Vierra said the bridges are made of 20-foot-long planks. The bridge at Clark Crossing between Tubac and Carmen is 40 feet long and 20 inches wide. They’ve been designed to break away when the river is running high due to rain. But the planks are connected by cables so they can be recovered. “We have a stanchion in the middle to support the bridge. We lay the planks on top of it. When the water rises, it’s designed to wash the bridge away, but we’ve tied a cable, a wire rope onto it. The planks themselves don’t float away. All we have to do is put a new stanchion back in and then we put the planks back in place.” Vierra works on the trail maintenance whenever it’s needed, he said. “We try to check it periodically. Mike jogs the trail or I’ll drive the trail in the gator. I use it because I can do the whole trail. And if there’s a fallen tree, I have the equipment, a chain saw, and can take action then and there. You find tires, you find trash, and you can just put it in the gator.” The equipment has made the work easier and more efficient. “When I first started, we’d have to have a dozen people just to carry all the tools. Now, you can throw the shovels and the picks and the chain saw and the weed eater into the gator. Then you drive the trail, not knowing what you’re going to find, but you’ll have the tools to handle it.” Anyone who encounters fallen trees or large branches blocking the trail, Vierra said, is encouraged to call or email the Anza Trail Coalition and report that.
Vierra said he gets a lot of satisfaction from his volunteer activity. “I work on it not so much for my enjoyment, but for other people, and to maintain it and make it possible so that people can use it. “Life has changed in the United States. Really, there are a lot of people that don’t have time. You take the average person or family, they’re both working and the kids are in school. They’ve got the weekend to go shopping and do everything else. I don’t see they have time: whereas, I have time. I think some of the things I’ve enjoyed over my lifetime have been made possible by people who have time,” Vierra said.
The Anza Trail Coalition has about 130 members and their dues help fund the work on the trail. New members are welcomed. On the web site, weekly bird sightings along the trail are listed. In January, the list showed 50 to 60 species identified.
Visit the web site at www.anzatrail.com, or call (520) 641-6944 for membership information or to learn about scheduled volunteer work parties.