Old town trail needs some help

The Candy Point Trail is in trouble, and Carol Netzel has asked the Coulee Dam Town Council for help.

Access to the Candy Point Trail is through Netzel’s front yard and when you arrive at the top you are afforded a bird’s eye view of Grand Coulee Dam and the town of Coulee Dam.

In a letter to the council last Wednesday, Netzel appealed to town officials to come up with a plan to fix the deteriorating trail.

“Although this is not on city land, it has always been considered one of our local attractions,” Netzel wrote to the council.

A sign in her front yard, at 432 Columbia, invites the people to cross her yard and make their way up the steep and rocky trail, hopefully to the top.

The trail was created in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” effort to promote environmental conservation and to put people back to work.

The trail has passed the test of time, partially through good community works, until just recently.

Netzel said that the large fire last year, and heavy rains and winds, have taken their toll on the trail.

Limbs and trees are over the trail, and rocks have cascaded down on it to make the trail both difficult and unsafe.

The last major cleanup of the trail was 15 or more years ago when the local Rotary Club took the trail on as a project.

Members of that service club moved rock and created logical stepping stones to make the top more accessible.

Since that time there have only been minor repairs to the trail, and that by users of it.

Coulee Dam Mayor Quincy Snow said he would see if he could find volunteer groups to take the cleanup of the trail as a project.