Yellow Trail Realignment
The Oct. 7th workday was our first fall outing with the expectation of cooler days, but the weather forecast said otherwise with the prediction of temperatures of 'about 90' in the park. Despite the hot weather, we still had a good turnout of 18 which included two newcomers.
The work itself picked up where we left off the previous workday as we headed off the old trail alignment and plunged further into a hillside covered in Ceanothus (see map with yellow showing the realigned trail). The new alignment eliminates the final one-third of the old trail and moves it higher up on the ridge. The realignment bypasses the older section that was lower, often wet and muddy during the winter, and included a section that paralleled Gazos Creek Fire Rd that seemed redundant.
Of course not following the old alignment meant we were truly bushwhacking. Ceanothus thrives in a post fire environment where it finds lots of sunlight and being three years after the CZU fires it has had time to establish almost impenetrable hillsides, even more so when there is no pre-existing trail to follow. Working off trail also made for tricky footing as the work area had us walking up-down-left-right seemingly at the same time.
Lunch Break along the Trail
The work itself was the same removal of vast amounts of Ceanothus from the new trail corridor and moving it to newly established burn pile sites.
The crew put in 124 hours and thanks to Daryn Bieri, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Denis DeCeuster, Mimi Guiney, Claudio Hunger, Marc Koenig, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Janette Mello, Mike Peasland, Dale Petersen, Devdutt Sheth, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, and newcomers Jacob Corbin and Alex Pappas for their work on a too hot Fall workday.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Mike and Bruce
Burned out Redwood