Juan de Oñate trail rebuilt

Students from Juan de Onate Elementary School hike up the Black Diamond Canyon Safe Trail in Gallup. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

Kindergarten student Brent Francis cuts the ribbon Friday afternoon to officially open the new Black Diamond Canyon Safe Route at Juan de Onate Elementary School in Gallup. The new path, which was built by members of the Youth Conservation Corps, ascends from the homes in Black Diamond Canyon up to the school as a route for students to walk safely to and from classes. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

GALLUP — The students of Juan de Oñate Elementary School christened a new path designed to get them safely to and from their classes every day the only way it makes sense to christen a path: with their feet.

The school's staff guided their young charges down the path into Black Diamond Canyon and back up as part of its grand opening Friday afternoon. City and Gallup McKinley County School officials were on hand for the occasion.

It's a rather short path so far as paths go just under a third of a mile one way but an important one, says Karl Lohmann.

Lohmann is the director of the state-funded Youth Conservation Corps, whose young staff, from 14 to 19 years of age, did most of the heavy lifting it took to build the path, officially called the Black Diamond Canyon safe route to school. What is does, said Lohmann, is turn what used to be a risky and litter-strewn scramble up and down the hill that separates the school on top from the trailer park below into a safe and clean and clearly marked path. Where it's not covered in sand and gravel, the route is carved into the sandstone itself. Drainage structures blend into the scenery and rocks line some of its length.

"It's important for the kids to have a safe way to get back and forth," said Lauren Jost, a fourth-grade teacher at the school who, together with fellow teacher Anni Elwell, has led the school in its partnership with the Conservation Corps.

Although Jost knows of no students who've been injured picking their way up and down the hill in its pre-safe route days, she says it's been a constant concern.

Lohmann considers the path a matter of not only safety, but health, encouraging students to make the daily hike, and providing a quicker route from the school and surrounding neighborhood to the recreational facilities by the Playground of Dreams. He hopes the path will provide a safe passage for anyone, not just students, trying to get between the neighborhoods above the canyon and the neighborhoods below.

The path itself, the first official "safe route to school" for Gallup, is actually the second stage of a project that isn't finished. The first phase, Lohmann said, involved clearing some 30 tons of trash out of the canyon. The third, which he plans on having done by March of 2007, will involve two more paths, starting at the east end of Juan de Oñate Elementary just as the first, leading to two other canyons east of Black Diamond.

There might even be a phase four, said Lohmann, involving the restoration of Black Diamond Canyon, including the removal of more trash, the building of more drainage controls, and the landscaping of native plants.