After local officials officially killed plans to dam Evans Creek Canyon early last year, a small group of mountain bikers and hikers wasted no time in getting a permanent trail built up the canyon.

Last February, the International Mountain Biking Association launched a project to build the trail, securing the necessary grants. Professionals with the group also were hired to design it.

Small groups worked on the trail Wednesday nights throughout the summer and fall, stashing tools in the sagebrush.

“We have an unbelievable loop,” said volunteer Dale Beesmer, adding the trail should be one more feature regional tourism officials should tout in their Great Outdoors theme.

The trail, which will be dedicated today, starts just past the cottonwoods on the north side of Rancho San Rafael Regional Park and ends almost at Parr Boulevard. There are loops at the top to Forest Service roads and one at the bottom.

More than a mile of the trail has been lifted out of the sensitive creek bottom and built along the side. The last half-mile segment will be lifted from the creek bottom this summer, said volunteer Dick Benoit.

Old trails have been obliterated. And the new trail has eliminated all but three of 14 creek crossings. Hundreds of baby sagebrush, rabbit brush and desert rose and peach have been planted, Benoit said.

The volunteers say it should serve as a model for other ravines in the Reno-Sparks area. Another group of citizens is now organizing to save those ravines before they’re developed.

“It’s a great example of what you can do with drainage ways,” Benoit said.

The volunteers had long wanted to build a trail system but were hampered by local government plans to dam Evans Creek Canyon.

“We couldn’t get anything done because of the pending dam project,” said Patti Bakker, a trail volunteer. “What was so frustrating to all of us is we wanted to improve the canyon for years.”

Bowing to neighborhood and trail-user pressure, the Reno City Council withdrew its support for building a 90-foot-tall dam in the canyon, which it owns, in November 2002. The county withdrew support in 2001.

And early last year, the city and county agreed one last time to stop the dam and pay for a study to look at other ways to deal with flooding.

After getting a green light, Bakker said, trail backers won a $10,600 Community Pride grant from Reno and a $17,500 federal trail grant through state parks to pay for the design and materials. Volunteers came from the Truckee Meadows Trails Association, the Reno Wheelmen and Nevada’s chapter of the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

Bakker said bikers, joggers, hikers and people with baby strollers can use the trail. During construction, the group spotted great horned owls and long-eared owls, as well as jackrabbits, coyotes, snakes and magpies.

The trail has a smooth, contoured grade and should require little maintenance, said Lynda Nelson, county horticulturist.

The International Mountain Bike Association will be back this weekend, reinforcing switchbacks at the top with riprap or rocks, Nelson said.

As part of their annual convention, 80 members of the Western Trail Builders Association ripped out old sections and recontoured sections of the trail Wednesday.

A future project would be a designed trail to Keystone Canyon to the west, replacing a maze of trails.

And Benoit foresees a designed trail all the way to the top of Peavine.

“That day maybe 15 years away,” he said. “But you could pedal from the arboretum to the top on a decent trail.”

For flood issues, the city and county hired WRC-Nevada, a Reno engineering firm.

Flooding from the seasonal creek inundated the University of Nevada, Reno, campus and surrounding areas in February 1986, causing $700,000 in damage. In 1994, the city and county agreed to build the dam and obtained $3.2 million in federal funds.

A small detention area is being built on the west side of Virginia Street, near Parr, and another may be built at Panther Valley, said Gene Jones, a city engineer.

In the flooding area near the UNR campus, the city is applying for flood zone status from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.