The Trail Crew's Nov. 16th workday on the north section of Sequoia Trail between N. Escape Rd and 236 was more of the same - in other words not as bad as it could be and a productive day!
Before the 2020 Santa Cruz Mountain Fire, there was a bridge on North Escape Road over the Opal Creek. The bridge burned leaving the steel beams and was replaced with a foot bridge allowing access to the north end of the Sequoia Trail.
No. Escape Bridge over Opal Creek after the Fire (photo from July 2022 workday on STS out near the old Barnes Kiosk.)
Replacement Foot Bridge over Opal Creek
It was a little more difficult finding burn pile locations than the previous workday, but the biggest challenge proved to be untangling a jumble of 2-3 foot diameter fallen redwood and Doug fir trees that were stacked on top of each other and completely blocked the trail.
It took a while to figure out how best to do the work safely and the initial cuts required the sawyer to stand on lower trees since things were stacked on top of each other. Gradually the cut rounds fell to the ground and some of the crew could move forward and begin clearing the trail further up.
Additional cutting of the rounds was needed before they could be picked up and moved. However, because there were no off trail areas to disperse them, they were carried to two nearby burn pile locations. After about 90 minutes the area had been cleared and all the debris tucked into the burn piles.
The remainder of the work was clearing Ceanothus from the trail and moving it to burn piles, so pretty routine work and by the end we had completed four burn piles for the day.
The biggest concern as we started on this 0.9 mile stretch of trail was always the steepness of the hillside the trail crosses and despite two days of good progress our luck may be running out. At the end of Nov. 16th workday we scouted ahead a short ways and the next section looks to have steep uphill and downhill slopes with tall vegetation on both sides of the trail and no visible areas below to disperse debris.
Our next workday is our last one of the year and a short one, so we may not get a full picture of what lies ahead until January.
Opal Creek
Small Banana Slug
The crew put in 147 hours and thanks to John Bodley, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Michele Gelblum, Drew Granzella, Ryan Granzella, Mimi Guiney, Tommy Ha, Wednesday Kirwan, Marc Koenig, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Mike Peasland, Zosia Stafford, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, and newcomers Deirdre Crommie, Phillip Edwards and Talu Gonzalez, for helping out on the first chilly fall day.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Mimi, Bruce, and Mike