A group of six gathered at Old Sacramento’s Trail Mix store Sunday morning to hear author and avid outdoorsman Jordan Summers teach the workshop, “Leave no trace.” “Leave no trace” consists of seven principles to promote responsible outdoor recreation. “It allows you to preserve the resources of which no more is being made,” Summers said. The back country was the focus of the workshop. Summers said the first six-mile stretch of a wilderness area is considered front country. Past that is considered back country. He said five times more people visit front country than the back country. Summers has been a hiker and active in the outdoors since his childhood in Virginia. He has lived in Ca

Have you noticed anything different about Southside Park lately? You may have seen the signs or the fencing around the lake and wondered what exactly is being changed in Southside Park and why. It started years ago with a meeting in the community. According to Hindolo Brima spokesman for the Department of Parks and Recreation, "[The Department of Parks and Recreation] hold periodic meetings within the community and usually send out invites to people in that [surrounding] neighborhood, saying 'Come in, we're remaster-planning this park and we want to know what you want to see at this park.'"  Brima stresses the importance of engaging the community on these remodeling projects because of

Please see "Playing in the dark" by clicking on the Storyline tab to the right. This article is a follow-up to "Playing in the dark."   The NBA season is rapidly approaching and many youths will be heading out to shoot hoops in their neighborhoods. However, depending on where a child lives, he our she may have few opportunities to play outside.    John Anderson, a regular at the Southside Park basketball courts, laments that many parks are taken up by soccer and picnic tables preventing him from playing football. Dy'Andre O'veal, another regular at the courts, adds that, "we don't really have a place where there's room to play football." Thus, after-school activities are limited to TV, t