Trail designed to help restore ecosystem // PHOTO GALLERY

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Panama City Beach Conservation Park’s “Gayle’s Trails” continue to grow, with a little help from the Panhandle chapter of the Florida Trail Association.

About 30 volunteers from the association met up with Dale Colby, Panama City Beach Parks and Recreation Department parks resource officer, Saturday morning to plant 3,000 tiny wiregrass plants along the new John Muir Trail, which is named for famed conservationist and “Father of the National Parks” John Muir and is set to open later this year.

Wiregrass was chosen to line the mile-long trail because it is a fire-dependent species and blooms and sends out seeds after being burned. Controlled burns are necessary in the area to clear out pine needles and other underbrush that, if allowed to build up, could cause a “catastrophic forest fire,” Colby said.

PHOTO GALLERY

Muir discovered the 90 million-acre fire-dependent longleaf pine ecosystem. Once the largest ecosystem in the U.S., stretching from Virginia to Florida to Texas, today the ecosystem covers only three million acres.

“We’re trying to bring it back,” Colby said.

Mary Thurman, an FTA member for four years and the group’s activity chair, along with other FTA members helped the beach Parks and Recreation Department lay out the new trail.

“We went to a trail design class in north Georgia last year that taught us a lot about designing trails,” Thurman said. “You know, you think you just go out there and lay out a trail, but there’s things you have to look for.”

Thurman stressed that one of the most important parts of planning the trail was finding areas that wouldn’t flood or erode. The Panhandle chapter of the FTA is in charge of maintaining 64 miles of the Florida Trail from the Apalachicola River to the Choctawhatchee River, according to the chapter’s trail coordinator Ron Peterson.

“I feel this site is our window to the past,” Colby said. “It’s showing people what it used to be like and we’re converting the whole park back to this… . That’s why we used John Muir: because we wanted that to inspire learning just like we want this site to inspire learning.”