A Small Village with a Big Personality
A recap from the 2025 Crew Program Partnership with Mazomaine Bluff Park
David Wastart | Operations & Training Manager
In South Central Wisconsin on the edge of the Driftless region rests Mazaomaine, a small village with big personality. Mazomaine Bluff Park is one green space of several within the village.
Once WisCorps was approached with a possible partnership opportunity, our first step was to conduct an initial assessments of the Bluff Trail system. As the Operations and Training Manager, I determined the proposed project scope was conducive for a crew project. The park was in need of trail rehabilitation and reroutes along several trail segments. After flagging these specific work areas along the park’s White and Orange segments, I began to build WisCorps’ plan for rehabilitation, structure builds, and brushing work, which would allow the park to become more accessible for community usage. It was clear to us that we’d need to re-dig several steep sections to put in reroutes or c-steps. After a couple of more visits, which included both the WisCorps Director, Eric Robertson and our Field Coordinator Kayla Paulsen, we finalized our plan to accomplish the proposed scope of work across several weeks in our summer and fall field seasons.
Wiscorps crews would work in three separate blocks over the course of 6.5 weeks with different crews working on the project. This allows our crew program to expand the overall opportunities we were able to offer our members, while simultaneously heightening WisCorps’ impact at the park. Blocks one and two were scheduled for completion within the Summer Field Season. Block three was conducted early in the Fall Field Season.
Each block included the following projects and goals:
- Block 1 (2 Weeks) had a crew and staff on three projects; Build a short connector trail from a paved accessible trail that circumnavigated a gravel access road, reroute a portion of Orange trail to gain elevation in a more sustainable approach and rehabilitate tread on the White trail segment.
- Block 2 (2.5 Weeks) piggybacked off the Orange Trail Reroute from the initial block one. To approach the top of Mazomaine Bluff a reroute was flagged out to gain elevation sustainably. A few retaining walls were also installed on some steeper portions of the trail. After the reroute was complete the crew moved to the White Trail segment to install several C-steps. These were constructed on site by the crew and staff.
- Block 3 (2 weeks) was utilized as a catch all for any incomplete projects. The final crew worked to install remaining c-steps and retaining walls. They also completed a final reroute along the White Trail segment to approach the top of the bluff in a sustainable and user friendly way.
Wiscorps’ staff and crews had a fun and meaningful time at the bluff.
Village staff were pleased with reroutes and the general approach that Wiscorps took.
We can’t wait to see how this trail holds up to the coming Spring and following seasons.
