Volunteers work to keep Peavine open by John Trent, Outpost contributor In this package Hikers find Peavine Mountain a peak experience The lowdown on how to prepare for your Peavine trek Peavine reveals its secrets grudgingly to hikers From top to bottom, Peavine hikes for everyone Sierra hiking has plenty of routes to choose from Read all about it: Good hiking books Mapping out your next hike Although much of Peavine Mountain remains open to public use, Friends of Peavine president Kirk Odencrantz believes much still needs to be done if the mountain is to remain one of the area's most popular recreation spots. About 20,000 acres on Peavine are controlled by the Forest Service - and about 20,000 acres near the top of the mountain and on its flanks remain in private ownership. Friends of Peavine, a non-profit, all-volunteer Reno organization, in concert with the American Land Conservancy of San Francisco, hopes to eventually purchase several thousand privately owned acres for public use. "If we don't do something, and get some more of this mountain open to public use, we may lose it forever," Odencrantz says, alluding to the fact that many private parties may not want to sell their property for public access in the future. Development is already crawling up Peavine's flanks, with a proposed major development of several hundred homes set to be built near Mogul - a prime mule deer foraging area - in the next two or three years. Toiyabe National Forest recreation planner Jocelyn Biro says the mountainís intricate series of trails and roads make it an unusual resource. "We don't have to do much in terms of creating trails," Biro says. "All we have to do is map and maintain what we have to ensure the resource is used with the lowest impacts possible." The all-volunteer Friends of Peavine organization of Reno hopes to keep Peavine open so the public can have access to resources such as this group of rocks left by 19th-century Native Americans. Photo by John Trent. Dan Brown, whose bike shop, Bicycle Bananas, literally sits in Peavine's shadow at the top of McCarran Boulevard, says he can envision a day when Peavine becomes a mountain biking and hiking park. Users use colorful trail maps and set out for day-long journeys up and down Peavine's front and back sides. The Forest Service, in a recently completed management plan for Peavine, has plans for maps and signs to help guide vehicular, foot and spoked travel on the mountain. "When you talk about accessibility, no mountain is any closer to Reno," Brown says. "It would be a natural." For the time being, as Odencrantz and others continue negotiations with Peavineís private landholders, Friends of Peavine works regularly at restoring some of Peavine's pre-Comstock Lode appearance by sponsoring tree plantings. Last spring, for example, two plantings by students from nearby Billinghurst Middle School put 3,000 trees into the ground of Peavine's flanks. The work was made possible from $800 the students saved in pennies, in addition to a $1,200 grant from Sierra Pacific. "This shouldn't be a mountain for today," Odencrantz says. "It should be for posterity." To find out more about Peavine, call: Friends of Peavine, 857-6840. Carson Ranger District of the Toiyabe National Forest, 882-2766. Posted Dec. 16, 1997 Copyright 1997 Nevada Outpost TOP | PREVIOUS | NEXT Nevada Outpost is produced by students at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno Copyright 1999 Nevada Outpost http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost