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TRAILS WEST --
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| After a marker has been installed or after the inscription plate has been replaced, the marker must be cleaned and painted using a $65.00 a gallon automobile paint. As shown in this collection of photos, this can be a tedious process. |
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| The above photo shows Dick Brock using a drill motor with wire brush to clean a marker before it is painted. Kay Kelso waits, rag in hand, to finish cleaning the marker. |
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| Les Ashton is shown above cleaning a marker before it is lowered into the ground. |
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| Don Enneking and Kay Kelso are shown painting a marker after a new inscription plate was riveted to it. You can see that the marker was an old one for it still was painted yellow when it was renovated. At one time all of the Trails West markers were painted yellow for ease of location. Today we must paint them so that they will blend into the background. Obviously, that makes them harder to locate. |
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Pat Loomis and Ralph Theiss paint the new marker at CR-1, the first marker on the Carson Trial located near the Humboldt Sink. It is just east of where the Truckee Trail branches off the California Trail. Note the color being used to paint the marker. It is a new color the BLM asked us to use to help the markers blend in more with the local environment. Photo by Don Herman.
Today, with more than 500 markers installed along the California Trail and its many branches, Trails West has a major problem trying to maintain the paint on the markers. Because of that, we are trying a new approach. Instead of painting each marker with the very expensive paint we have been using, we will allow them to rust. We feel this will be OK since rust is a "natural" finish. In addition, the markers are fabricated from 90- to 110-pound steel rail and thus would not be damaged by a little rust. |
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