Another storm was a day away on the April 10th trail crew day. I left the house expecting a pleasant day (wishful thinking after the previous couple of warm spring days) and on the way to the park it started to drizzle. The park offered to lend me a rain jacket and I gladly accepted it. We had a nice turn out of 14 crew members so we split up. I took one crew to open the fire roads starting on Middle Ridge at Gazos then to Johansen where there were 4 trees across the road with 100 meters then back down Gazos.
There was about 8-10 trees across the roads and this was an 18” Fir but with a little effort; open road ahead.
There was a lot of hard working going on …well most of the time. We saw numerous banana slugs but they were smaller than the one at my house, which you can see is almost 7” long. Her name is George.
The second crew, lead by Mike, started the day by going over to the Kirsch Trail and taking out the tan oak that was overhanging the trail just before the bridge. After that they hiked a short distance up the Shadowbrook Trail toward Huckleberry and found the blockages (18-inch d/f and 10-inch t/o) that the ranger had mentioned. Norm caught up to the crew and reported there was nothing on the trail between Huckleberry where he parked and the work area.
After finishing with Shadowbrook, they drove out N. Escape as far as we could before they hit a locked gate. So they parked where the short connector trail goes between N. Escape and the Maddock cabin site. They hiked up and back on the Meteor removing some small debris and a 24-inch t/o which tested the limits of Dale's small saw.
It was an average work day but with it the BBVTC has racked up 407 hours year to date. If we can keep this up we can break our 2008 record of 943 hours.
See you on the trail - Jeff