Community pulls together to create walking path in Jocko
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ARLEE – The completion of a new walking, jogging and biking path along Jocko Road in Arlee will help keep community members active and safe, project leaders said last week as a portion of the trail became reality after much collaboration.
About three-tenths of a mile of the Jocko Road trail was expected to be open for travel as of press time, Jocko Valley Trails Committee Chair Gary Decker said.
Water gurgles and sparkles in the sunlight as it flows swiftly past the vibrant green cattle-pocked pastures and freshly-plowed fields near Jocko Road, making a picturesque scene attractive to many bikers and joggers, but according to Decker, it can get a bit dangerous.
“We have a lot of bicyclists, joggers, walkers,” Decker said. “I’ve even people with their rolling walkers out here. It’s a real safety issue because we have a lot of logging traffic.”
The committee, which is a part of the Arlee Community Development Corporation, has worked to pave and establish several miles of trail in the area in the past five years. Eventually, the group would like more of Jocko Road to have a trail, but it is going to take cooperation from landowners. The recent bit of path was developed after landowner Mary Stranahan gave the county an easement for it to be built.
Volunteers came and removed her fencing before the project and they will return to put it back up after it is completed. From there, millings were donated by the Montana Highway Department, and students at Salish Kootenai College Heavy Equipment Operation program took over construction.
In a quarter’s time the students built the trail.
“It’s an excellent thing for our students,” Salish Kootenai College instructor Randy McNair said. “The students get a little bit of surveying, which will really help them in this trade.”
The program has placed many students into decent-paying careers, and it is because they get to work on projects like the path, the instructor said.
“It’s on the job training,” McNair said.
Student Owen Chief said he will remember working on the path if he drives by it in the future and how it helped him learn his trade.
“It’s been really useful,” Chief said, adding that learning the mechanics of operating all different kinds of dump trucks and heavy equipment is a lot harder than it sounds.
Decker said it took a lot of collaboration to get the trail built and he hopes the road ahead includes more teamwork that results in Arlee being a little bit more pedestrian-friendly. Landowners interested in granting an easement can contact the Arlee Community Development Corporation.
