Grand opening of new Roundtop Trail Saturday

The trail development of Roundtop is about to be complete and it will have its Grand Opening on May 21 at 10 a.m.

Todd Thibodeau is the team leader of four members who did the hard work. The trail building work started on March 22 and they hope to be done by May 20. The nature of the work entails digging with pickaxes, using a Punjab gas-powered jackhammer, and a device called a come-along that helps move huge rocks that easily weigh tons. And, when necessary, they drill holes or cores into the rock and explode black powder when nothing else works to break apart the stone.

Thibodeau explained that “a come along is a large grip hoist. It’s a way of moving big rocks. We’ve moved one rock we figured that was probably close to four tons or about 8,000 pounds. And we used the come along also to swing the really large rocks into place for the walls.”

Thibodeau said about the rock material found on Roundtop travertine, “it’s very interesting. I’ve never worked with rock like this before. Some of the rock is soft. You can almost break it with your hand. And some of it is so hard. It’s harder than any concrete I’ve ever seen, even to put a jackhammer through it. It’s really intriguing material to work with because it’s so variable. But it builds beautiful features because it cleaves on these big flat rocks that you can build really nice things with.”

The trail is about three feet wide and 3,600 lineal feet from the bottom to the top. Some of the trail’s walls the team built can be as high as eight feet. The trail starts at the Freudenthal family memorial and winds its way to the top with several switchbacks.

Thibodeau said that typically for the average hiker, it could take about 15 minutes to reach the top. He added, “We really worked hard to keep the grades real modest on this. So it’s a pretty easy hike… We tried to do an average grade of seven to 8%.”

The money to pay for the work, Thibodeau said, is through the Hot City Outdoor Alliance in partnership with Wyoming Pathways, which is a statewide trails organization.

Thibodeau said, “Some of the money donated came from the Walmart Foundation. However, we ran out of money, so, we’re not building anything on the very top right at the moment.” Although, the trail work they have done does lead to the top edge.

Donations are being accepted to continue the remaining work on the trail. Contact Dusty with the Hot City Outdoor Alliance at 921-2334 to donate.