By MICHAEL BUSHNELL
Northeast News
February 19, 2013

The walking trail along Gladstone Boulevard and Cliff Drive might be strewn with trash bags and old tires today, but make no mistake, that trash is the result of a herculean effort by an army of volunteers who did some early spring cleaning along the Cliff Drive Scenic Byway corridor this past Sunday.

More than 160 volunteers descended on the tree-lined bluff in Kessler Park and began the arduous task of removing litter from the hillside and clearing brush from the network of trails that run from the Indian Mound area all the way to the western trail hub near The Paseo.

Four over the road buses filled with students from South Elgin High School in northern Illinois teamed up with the Kansas City chapter of ERTA (Earth Riders Trails Association) to clear more than 235 bags of trash, 115 tires and a myriad of miscellaneous large trash items from the hillside. The crews also removed roughly five truckloads of invasive honeysuckle from the trail corridor.

Sources with ERTA note the project will ultimately take years to finish but Sunday’s effort was a big start to restoring the network of trails along the bluff. For more on the group’s efforts, check out their website at: http://kesslerparksingletrack.blogspot.com.