DA Students Become Literal Trailblazers During Senior Challenge: Local
Story and Photography by Dylan Howlett
8-minute read
On her morning drive in recent weeks to Durham Academy’s Upper School campus, Eva Walker ’26 has found herself glancing out of her passenger-side window at the exact moment that she reaches Pickett Road’s plateau Sandy Creek Trail. This has served, for scores of DA cross country athletes, as an unofficial crossing into Sandy Creek Park. Walker knew it well during her two years on the team. That particular segment of Pickett Road — a short jaunt from Alumni Field — is in its full expanse, a 900-foot stretch of pavement that eventually intersects with Ridge Road. Nearly 4,000 motorists drive along it every day, often with casual fidelity to the posted 35-mph speed limit. To cross Pickett at this exact spot — at the base of a hill, and without the aid of an established crosswalk — is to invite some measurable peril.
But as she peers out of the right side of her car, Walker sees something more: progress toward a safer crossing for future generations of DA students and faculty. That was the stated objective for this year’s Senior Challenge: Local, the campus-based companion to Senior Challenge: Mountains. As their classmates trekked through the wilderness of Western North Carolina some 200 miles to the west, more than a dozen Upper Schoolers tackled a gauntlet of far more literal trailblazing. The challenge’s faculty leaders — sustainability coordinator and independent learning coordinator Tina Bessias ’78 and Upper School English teachers Jeff Biersach and Adam Cluff — were optimistic, though with no shortage of caution, about the ambitions of their itinerary. In just three days, the seniors hoped to extend Sandy Creek Trail across Pickett Road and along the greenway that runs parallel to Sandy Creek — all in an effort to meet the prerequisite for approving a crosswalk as set forth by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
The task was, to borrow from their Senior Challenge counterparts, mountainous. They would have to move tons — literally — of dirt and gravel to fill puddles and fortify low-lying areas. They would have to navigate terrain turned muddy by a summer’s worth of torrential rain with nothing but shovels and wheelbarrows. And they would have only three hours across three mid-August mornings to do it.
So when, weeks later, Walker looks through her car window and sees a swath of gravel extending in a distinctive traillike fashion along the greenway, she does so in amazement. Oh, my God. I was one of the students who wheelbarrowed all that gravel and dumped it in that spot. We built that tiny trail.
How, you might ask? Come see for yourself along a path not taken — but one that DA students hope, in time, will become well traveled.
DAY 1: Monday, Aug. 18
Weather Conditions: Sunny, 83 degrees, 67% humidity
9:50 a.m.
A half-mile from the trail extension project, a handful of seniors start work on Senior Challenge: Local’s second project: replacing rotten planks on the Kenneth Coulter Sandy Creek Bridge, a pedestrian footbridge in Sandy Creek Park. Their informal project manager is none other than the intrepid John Goebel (third from right, kneeling in maroon T-shirt), the president of the Durham Parks Foundation and a volunteer with The Friends of Sandy Creek Park. The whirs of drills and snaps of decaying wood mingles with the steady hum of cicadas and the occasional chirps of Eastern bluebirds and cardinals.
Walker kneels down to remove accumulated dirt from the grooves in the bridge. Several of the downtrodden planks betray evidence of fungi — some taking a spaghetti form, others an ectoplasm-like glaze — on their underbelly, the discovery of which elicits a collective “Ewwwwwwww!” from the group. They press on undeterred.
By mid-morning, the bridge team has laid eight new planks into place and left gaps for six additional planks, which Goebel cuts with a circular saw about a tenth of a mile down the trail. Bessias and Cluff nod in approval as they work alongside their students. “We’ve got a good rhythm going,” Cluff says. A man on his midmorning walk passes through and thanks the students for their work.
11:15 a.m.
On the other side of Pickett Road, the trail extension operation is well underway. Biersach and five Upper Schoolers fill wheelbarrows of dirt and gravel — both of which are stacked 5 feet high in neat, formidable mounds — and deposit the loads atop a pair of puddles, the largest of which stretches about 50 feet long and 8 feet wide. The recipe is simple: dirt first, then gravel, followed by careful raking and forceful stomping to help the gravel settle into place. By the conclusion of their first morning, the trail team has filled the smaller of the two puddles with gravel.
Zaria Vazirani ’26 (middle) stomps freshly laid gravel atop the smaller of two puddles on the greenway across from Sandy Creek Trail.
Anisha Horne ’26 shovels dirt atop the largest stretch of standing water on the greenway: roughly 50 feet long and 8 feet wide.
1:00 p.m.
Each afternoon brings a new guest speaker to share more about land use policy and advocacy. John Sandor, an engineer with the N.C. Department of Transportation, is Monday’s visitor. He says his most meaningful projects have come from simply thinking about a problem — and the solutions he eventually devises last for decades. Future DA students, Sandor says, will walk or run on the trail extension and think, ‘How did that trail get here?’ “And you’ll be able to tell the story,” he says. “You guys are doing a great thing.”
Biersach closes out the day with equal parts humility and optimism. “That was hard work,” he says of shoveling and laying gravel. “People will stand on the other side of the trail and see where the trail might one day extend.” He smiles. “Sometimes people have to see it.”
DAY 2: Tuesday, Aug. 19
Weather Conditions: Cloudy, 73 degrees, 84% humidity
10:15 a.m.
Work at the Coulter Bridge halts after an hour, following the discovery of two yellow jacket nests hidden beneath a pair of undisturbed planks. The bridge team walks the half-mile down Sandy Creek Trail to join forces with the trail team, and soon they make speedy progress toward filling the standing water.
By the end of day two, Senior Challenge: Local participants will have moved roughly 14 tons of gravel. A portable speaker blasts a selection of fitting 1990s one-hit wonders, including the familiar refrain of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping”: I get knocked down, but I get up again / You’re never going to keep me down.
Seth McLean ’26, Nick Friga ’26 and Grant Watson ’26 rake gravel into place across the larger of the two puddles on the greenway. Several passersby praise the group. One, a self-described naturalist in a Milwaukee Bucks T-shirt, smiles broadly. “That puddle isn’t doing anyone any good,” he says. Another — a bespectacled middle-aged man — says about three different variations of “This is great!” as he walks beside the freshly graveled trail.
Biersach (middle, with wheelbarrow) dumps gravel near the larger body of standing water. Over the course of the three days, Biersach cheerfully likens the physical demands of shoveling gravel and lugging wheelbarrows to those of a CrossFit workout. “This is literal heavy lifting,” he says. The students are also starting to feel it. “Physically, it was a little bit challenging, but it wasn't awful,” Spencer Hill ’26 said afterward. “I think my back started to hurt a little bit, but that was about it. And honestly, if I took better care of my back, it probably wouldn't have been that bad.” (Laughs)
On Monday, the trail team covers about 25 feet of standing water across the greenway. On Tuesday, with the benefit of reinforcements from the bridge team, the seniors cover an additional 48 feet. “Wow,” Biersach says as he surveys their progress. “It looks really good.”
1:45 p.m.
Tuesday’s guest speaker is a familiar face: David Dunn, the vice president and senior principal at the consulting engineering firm Bass, Nixon & Kennedy, Inc., is DA’s de facto feasibility expert. He has worked with the school on a host of capital projects, including the STEM & Humanities Center, Kirby Gym, the Gateway Center and the Arts & World Language Center. “He is,” says Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner, who joins this afternoon’s talk, “the reality-checker on our dreams.”
Dunn serves a similar function today: He shows the students aerial photography of DA’s campus and Sandy Creek Park, and he discusses the multiple agencies from which DA would need to secure approval for a crosswalk on Pickett. Dunn recommends that DA meet with Durham Parks & Recreation to assess the viability of a crosswalk project and to investigate any potential cost-sharing options with the city. After a lengthy explanation about the need to consult utility maps in order to confirm where the sewer line on the greenway empties, Dunn pauses and smiles. “Isn’t this fun?” he says with a laugh.
DAY 3: Wednesday, Aug. 20
Weather Conditions: Cloudy, 72 degrees, 83% humidity
9:00 a.m.
The arrival of the third and final day brings with it an additional delivery of 10 tons worth of gravel. The seniors quickly divide into three groups — shoveling, wheelbarrowing and raking — to make quick work of the newest pile.
Milla Rasic ’26 deposits a wheelbarrow’s worth of dirt atop the remaining standing water. The Senior Challenge: Local crew devotes its final day to filling, and refilling, softer spots where the water is deepest.
McLean (left) and Watson spent the bulk of the final day on shoveling duty as the latest gravel delivery of 10 tons quickly dwindled.
Back at the Coulter Bridge, the planking operation becomes a community affair. Bessias — seen here drilling screws into new planks — bumps into a Carrboro resident named Joel who’s riding his bike on the local trails. Joel, fortuitously, is a carpenter — and he happily assists Bessias and Goebel with the plank restoration. By the end of Day 3 — at which point Horne, Rasic and Vazirani have helped move leftover lumber to a nearby storage shed — the combination of Goebel, Bessias, Joel and DA students has placed 22 large planks and 18 smaller planks.
At the trail, the shoveling continues apace. The bed of gravel pictured here had, just hours before, risen about 4 feet high.
“Everyone has their different reasons for not going on the ‘real’ Senior Challenge in the mountains,” Walker said, “but I think it was good to see that everyone had fun with it and found their purpose within the challenge.”
Alex Ru ’26, Eric Cao ’26 and Seth McLean ’26 rake the remaining gravel across softer spots on the new trail.
At last, the work is done. The movement of material and progress toward filling the standing water is staggering: In all, the DA seniors have covered an area 60 feet long by 16 feet wide across the largest swath of standing water. They have moved roughly 24 tons of gravel. And now — where none existed just two days before — a 96-foot trail stretches from the westbound edge of Pickett Road toward the greenway. “You have exceeded expectations,” a beaming Bessias says to the seniors. “These projects have gone way farther than we anticipated them to go. That’s really exciting.”
“I think the main thing is you're not just doing this because you're told,” Walker said weeks later when asked to reflect on the service-oriented nature of Senior Challenge: Local. “You truly can picture the lasting effects of it, and you can truly think of who might be using the trail one day. The service that you're doing, you have to be empathetic with it because you need to be able to find the purpose in doing it. That's what we really kind of instill at DA, and that's what I thought about during our time on the trail. Ms. Bessias was so invested in trying to think about who would use the trail, and she was so empathetic with all these different people. That’s the biggest thing.”
1:15 p.m.
The challenge’s final guest speaker is David Bradley ’13 (pictured on right), an open space specialist with Durham County Engineering and Environmental Services who relishes his role in protecting — and promoting the benefits of — Durham’s undeveloped land. A former DA cross country runner, he is thrilled by the prospect of a more robust trail for future DA runners. Bradley advises the seniors to participate in city council meetings and directly ask governmental officials for input and feedback for a potential Pickett Road crosswalk.
Bessias prompts each student to share what they believe should come next. Walker suggests gauging interest in an extended trail within the DA and Durham communities. Horne reminds the group to consider the consequences of construction, including potential road closures and any impact on wildlife. Several students recommend collecting data to demonstrate how many people might benefit from a trail and crosswalk. Bradley smiles. “This is what it’s all about,” he says. “Y’all are doing exactly the right things.”
Senior Challenge: Local concludes at a most auspicious location: the Elder Oak, designated a champion tree for its distinction as the largest-known scarlet oak in North Carolina. It is also, at more than 200 years old, the oldest tree on DA’s campus. “It’s a nice place to ponder things and consider the span of time,” Bessias says.
The group, in this moment, chooses to reflect on the previous three days and a future crosswalk that now feels far less fantastical. “You may have just started a project that goes on a decade,” Biersach says. He envisions a moment years from now when these same students will return to campus as a DA alum, see a completed trail next to Pickett Road and say with pride: I was the first shovel in the ground when it was just puddles. “It was good to see you guys dig in,” he says.
Bessias agrees. “You guys will leave a legacy,” she says.
“If you think about it,” Walker says, “what was it: 13 high schoolers who put together 100 feet of trail? If you get a community of people who are more skilled and just as into it or willing as we were, you could really build something. But it doesn't stop there. It requires so many people, so many organizations that I didn't even know existed. I didn't know there were rules for watersheds and how you can't push water into someone's property. I didn't even think of that. And I think some of that was almost stressful because you realize there are so many moving parts. But learning about that was awesome. And now when I'm driving on Pickett Road, I see a trail. I think, ‘Oh, I wonder who uses that — or who it will affect one day.’”