The crew met the state trail crew lead by Chris Pereira and Jose Casteneda, Chris' lead person, at HQ at 9. We made it to the shed a bit later and based on our crew of 9 it was decided that there were enough tools already staged on the new re-routing with exception of our sledge hammer. It only took about 10 minutes to hike to the work site. We split into 2 groups, one with José and Kyle, members of Chris' 5 person trail team, Chris Young, John Collins, John Martin, Jeanette Mello, and Aaron. The other group, Dale S, David Philleo, Paul Fleischman, and Norm stayed with Chris P. Before we split up, we trenched out a slot for a redwood log that was lifted into place to establish the edge of the new trail. Once that was done we set rock behind the log then started filling in with soil to establish the tread. After that we worked on establishing more tread - lots of roots .
The second crew lead by Kyle and Jose (from the district crew) worked on cutting new trail tread with John Collins, Aaron and John Martin.
New trail looking pretty good at this point with flags placed to show the edge of the trail tread. Fire line style with each worker following making gradual cutting and smoothing of the tread surface. We concentrated on making a discernible hinge at each side of the trail and sloped outward to encourage water to sheet off the trail surface. Aaron and John Martin worked with Kyle to put the new puncheon together:
Dale, Norm, Paul and Dave with Chris P. working on installing a log crib to support the new trail. The old trail at the intersection will now be a drain bed. A final shiny shot of new trail
We stopped at 2:30, storing/hiding all the tools behind a group of redwoods. Got back to the shed around 3. Chris asked if we would be interested in coming back out to work again on the re-route. His 5 person crew will be back at work on Monday so not sure exactly where we'd be working. He now estimates that the complete re-route won't be done until mid-August. There are plans to develop another re-route at the STTS/Dool trails junction. It was nice to be a part of something that will be around for years to come - sure beats brushing. It was nice that José told ranger Alex that our crew worked three times as hard as the CCC crew that will be leaving next Friday. Not bad for a bunch of older dudes!
The crew put in 77 hours not including the state crew's time and thanks to Paul Fleischman, Chris Young, Dale Stadelman, Norm Beeson, John Collins, David Philleo, John Martin, Aaron Poulos, and Janette Mello.
By Norm, Chris Y, and Jeff
Photos by Chris and Aaron