Blue Meeting Area and Red Dots Work Area
We had a solid crew of 15 show up at Jay Camp for the September 17th workday. When we arrived there, Road and Trails staff were busy cutting plywood to size for the floor of our soon to be tool storage area there. Hopefully by next workday!
Everyone arrived by 8:35 but we ended up waiting for Kile's team to finish a couple things before heading to work. We formed a caravan to the Gazos Creek picnic area and then set off to the location we left two weeks ago, working on the Sunset Trail.
It was more of the same for the most part, clearing the ceanothus that was encroaching on the trail and building burn piles from dead Tan Oaks, Doug Firs and Madrones. Rory and Devdutt manned the hedgers on a stick (we had a 2nd one from state parks for the day), though no one was tempted to use the bladed weed wacker. That was in part due to the fact that the harnesses for the tools had been mistakenly left behind. The hedgers were okay to use without the harness but the weed wacker would have been just dangerous.
At one section there was a 3ft Douglas Fir across the trail but after a few cuts that section of the trail was opened.
The weather was much more agreeable, just touching over 70F at the hottest part of the day. We worked from a little after nine and took lunch at noon. After lunch, John C. had the opportunity to be coached on falling a five foot diameter Douglas Fir. They took their time and got their final cut right before dropping the tree with a thunderous crash. It felt like the grand finale at the fireworks and after that folks were ready to go home. Though, I did manage to convince them to clear the debris off the trail before we went. We were back at the picnic area by 2:30pm and we plan to be back at the end of September.
The crew put in 112 hours and thanks to Janie, Arnie, John M., Rory and Jim, Sean, Devdutt, John B., Dale E., Charles, Bruce, David S., Shaymal, John C. and Chris Y.
by Chris and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Chris, and Sean