With many Trail Crew regulars away on summer travels, we decided to make the August 22nd workday a return to our roots by doing maintenance on an open trail.  Some on the Crew have done personal time hikes in the past couple of months and reported that a section of Skyline-to-Sea Trail (STS) was becoming overgrown while park staff said there were visitor reports of several small-medium size trees down on Sequoia Trail below 236.  

For days before the August 8th workday there had been Bay Area wide heat wave warnings and our current effort on Pine Mtn Trail heading towards Buzzards Roost does not provide a lot of shade, but we still had a crew of 17 that was up to the challenge!

After several days of the more tedious work clearing trail edges and doing 'QC' touch up work, the Trail Crew's July 25th workday saw a return to making forward progress on clearing the trail as we approach a hairpin turn that will lead to the last long stretch of trail to Buzzards Roost.

The objective of the work is to clear vegetation from trail edges so it doesn't impact the trail corridor itself, but it can sometimes be tedious work. Since the 2020 fires we've tried to stay current with brushing as we worked on clearing the trail itself. Letting trail clearing get too far ahead of brushing only meant we would have multiple days of brushing to catch up on at some point.

Clearing Big Basin trails of post-fire regrowth has become more of a challenge the past 12-18 months as we encounter increasingly dense thickets of vegetation where the trail should be. Or where we 'think' the trail should be. And sometimes we just take a guess and hope for the best.

The work wasn't the biggest obstacle for the June 13th workday it was the warm temperatures and gnats that tested the Trail Crew's dedication. Despite temperatures in the upper 90's two days beforehand, 21 crew members still said they planned to be there. After months of work the Sequoia Trail is now open.

The Trail Crew has been extremely fortunate to have good turnouts for most workdays and we needed it for May 30th as we split into two crews with most everyone continuing on Pine Mtn Trail while a small group split off at the request for the District crew for more touch-up on the recently opened Sequoia Trail.

In January 2024 the BBVTC began CZU fire recovery work on Sequoia Trail and our May 16th workday brought us full circle as we were tasked with clearing the trailhead near the old park headquarters as the final step before opening the trail to park visitors.  There was a good turn out of 17 and work started at the old HQ area.

The May 2 workday was an important one for the Trail Crew as we began pushing into new areas where there appeared to be limited opportunities for disposing material as we continued clearing Pine Mtn Trail. We needed to streamline our work as the trail moved away from the fire road. The previous workday ended with the initial clearing of a new keyhole and a lot of debris staged along the trail waiting to be moved up the hill.

Another good turnout with 22 crew members showing up to continue work on the Pine Mountain Trail.  The major achievement for the day was opening a new keyhole between the trail and fire road.