The Oct. 15th workday was only our fourth on the lower section of Sunset Trail (red dots) and we continued making good progress with three different tasks accomplished during the day.
Of course weed whacking the under story regrowth is job ONE before we can even start building burn piles. Rory jumped on that task, first doing some cleanup work from the previous workday and then jumping ahead to prep the trail in front. By the end of the day everything to just below Middle Ridge had been cleared of the Ceanothus that had become the scourge of our workdays on Sunset.
In between there were two work areas. The bulk of the crew did the usual clearing burned debris and down trees from the trail corridor and moving everything into burn piles. By the end we had finished five burn piles, opened about three-quarters of lower Sunset and were ready to make the final push to the fire road next workday.
As we've approached Middle Ridge, we've encountered more large trees blocking the way. The District crew worked on cutting the large trees into rounds while the Crew worked on splitting six large 4+ ft diameter Doug fir rounds that were left from earlier work. And of course these ended up in a burn pile just like everything else we clear from the trail.
The Crew put in 150 hours and thanks Arnold Arcolio, Daryn Bieri, John Bodley, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Denis DeCeuster, Michele Gelblum, Peter Gelblum, Marc Koenig, Janette Mellow, Ted Merrill, Mike Peasland, Cassie Sprenger, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, and newcomers Andrea Lee, Michael Klimushyn, Tyler Nicholson and Chad Reynolds for another great day on the trails.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Mike, Bruce, and Dayrn