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After 18 months on Sequoia Trail, the July 12th workday brought us to the beginning of a new challenge as we began clearing the 1.8 mile Pine Mountain Trail that will eventually take us to Buzzards Roost and arguably one of the best viewpoints in Big Basin. We had made a scouting visit to the area on June 30th to scout out the new work area.
The Trail Crew has been fortunate to attract new people and keep them coming back and one of the main draws is the ability to make a visible impact in a single workday. Whether clearing winter blowdowns and reopening a trail in the pre-CZU fire days or clearing the wall of regrowth that has taken over many trail corridors since the 2020 fires, seeing the impact of your effort each workday is what keeps many on the Crew returning.
After the Trail Crew's May 31st effort didn't go as well as hoped due to the first hot workday of the year, problems with two different chainsaws and slower than expected progress, we were looking for better luck on June 14th and got it! Temperatures were about 15 degrees cooler, chainsaws worked and we made good progress as we took another step toward finishing our portion of work on Sequoia Trail.
With the Crew's May 3rd workday canceled due to Big Basin's closure because of forecasted winds of 35-45 mph and lots of standing dead trees from the 2020 fires, we were back to work on May 17th. We're nearing the end of work on the section of Sequoia Trail between Hwy 236 and N. Escape Rd, so the dramatic impact of turning a thickly overgrown hillside into a trail is behind us.
We're getting close to the end of our work on Sequoia Trail, so after our May 3rd 2025 workday was canceled due to high winds and a park closure we'll be back out to finish up on the Sequoia. We still have sections of trail that have debris stacked along the edges that needs to find a permanent home. So probably 1-2 days more work on Sequoia.
After splitting into two crews on the previous workday, our April 19th outing had everyone back together. We started from the Hwy 236 end of Sequoia Trail for the first time. With lots of debris remaining from earlier clearing work, the larger woody pieces were scattered in downhill areas while the slash was placed on tarps, carried along the trail and across the highway to a large clearing above Slippery Rock where four burn piles were constructed.
The great Crew turn out of 23 returned to the Sequoia North Section of the trail from the southern access on North Escape road. There were some branches and smaller trees that had fallen across the trail in the last rain that fell the week before that needed clearing.
After that it was time to continue to compact and add to the three burn piles we had started two weeks earlier. We significantly expanded the middle burn pile. Chris and Andrea worked on cutting on burn piles while John and Rory worked towards the front of the crew.
A little before noon John and Rory reported that a large portion of the trail had been rendered impassable by a slide in a drainage ahead. They left to work on clearing the trail from the opposite direction on upper 236 with Dale S. along to help.
The rest of us investigated the slide and with some scrambling around on the fallen logs and branches discovered that a fair amount of the trail tread may still be intact. After weighing the risks for a bit we decided it was worth some exploratory cutting to see if the trail could be opened enough to resume work from the bottom. The upper stretch just in from 236 is worthy of Mountain Goats with slides, rocks, missing foot bridge and a STEEP drop off if you misstep.
Tommy did great work using some loppers to cut back the new Redwood saplings and had great support from crew members who carried the cut sapling away to the burn piles. After lunch Chris was able to use the crew’s chainsaw to untangle many of the logs and branches that had been wedged together in the slide and before 1 pm we had eager crew members crossing over to continue work past the obstruction.
It was great when we got to see Rory, John and Dale working their way down the trail from up ahead and by 1:30pm we met in the middle to many cheers. It has been at least a year and three months working to open up this trail and the meeting was like the Union Pacific meeting the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit, well maybe not exactly like that but everyone was over the moon to have opened up the entire trail. There are still many spots along the trail that will need State Parks input and assistance to make the trail safe for visitors but it was a great feeling to make that connection.
The feeling of making the connection must have felt like a good stopping point because folks called it a day right afterwards. We tooled up and headed back to the Jay Camp crew stalls around 2:30pm.
The crew put in 168 hours and thanks to Chandra Allen, Fremont Bainbridge, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Karen Cheeniyil, Santhosh Cheeniyil, John Collins, Drew Granzella, Ryan Granzella, Dale Elliott, Tommy Ha, Cammie Hunt, Norb Lazar, Andrea Lee, Janie Leifhelm, Salome Navarette, Aaron Shaw, Marc Shaw, Dale Stadelman, Brian Washburn, Chris Young, Daniel Zichuhr, and newcomer Jack Marshall.
by Chris, Mike, and Jeff
photos by Chris and Dale E.
