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Buffalo National River Partners is looking for volunteers to help pull invasive stiltgrass along the Lost Valley Trail on Saturday, Sept. 12.
Volunteers will meet at 10 a.m. at the pavilion at the trailhead and work until 1 p.m. The job is pulling and bagging the grass by hand.
Japanese stiltgrass is native to Asia and spreads fast in shaded, damp ground like the floor of Lost Valley. It smothers the native wildflowers that have long made the trail worth walking in spring. The plant pulls up easily, which is why the work suits volunteers of most ages and abilities, though it is stubborn enough that the Partners have come back year after year.
Lost Valley is the most-visited trail in Buffalo National River. It runs up a forested box canyon near the Boxley Valley Historic District, past American beech groves to the Natural Bridge, Cob Cave and Eden Falls. The trailhead is off Arkansas 43 about a mile and a half south of Ponca.
Volunteers should bring work gloves, a water bottle, bug spray, and clothing and shoes they can work in. Anyone who shows up will fill out National Park Service volunteer paperwork on arrival, then hear a short explanation of the project before heading out.
Buffalo National River Partners is the park’s official friends group. It supplies volunteers and money to the National Park Service for work the park cannot cover on its own.
Organizers ask volunteers to sign up ahead of time through the Partners’ website at bnrpartners.org, and to log their hours afterward at bnrpartners.org/volunteerhours.
