Prior to the CZU fires in 2020, winter was the Trail Crew's busy time of year as we worked to clear down trees from trails after storms and keep them open for park visitors. Our Feb. 10th workday was a throwback to that era as a series of atmospheric river storms brought rain and high winds to the Santa Cruz Mountains, closed the park for most of the previous week, and felled a huge redwood that fell across Hwy 236 and into the Jay Camp parking area, damaging the lot gate in the process.
With no reports of what was out there, our assignment was to check the Redwood Loop Trail (RWL) and Skyline-to-Sea out to the Meteor Trail area. After admiring the size of the tree that had been cleared from the roadway we headed towards the RWL , passing a couple of widow makers on the way that reminded us why the park is closed on high wind days.
With a big turnout of 25, we decided to split into two crews after reaching the RWL, with one crew walking clockwise on the trail and the other one counterclockwise. It didn't take long for either crew to find something that would take most of the morning to clear.
The first crew discovered a down tree that wasn't that big, only about 12-inches in diameter, but it brought down a lot of debris with it and damaged sections of split rail fence in the process. It took several hours to clear all the debris from the trail, scatter it in nearby off trail areas and then chainsaw the tree trunk into sections that could be carried off the trail as well.
Meanwhile the second RWL crew came across a 3-ft tree redwood that had fallen across the trail, sending debris everywhere. It took a while to clear everything and in the end we noticed a good size dent in the treadbase from the trees impact that may need to be repaired for ADA compliance.
As we headed towards our Gazos Creek picnic area lunch spot, we came across a 5-ft redwood completely blocking the Skyline-to-Sea Trail (STS) near Dool and quickly decided it was beyond our scope for the day.
After lunch we split into two crews again with one small group hiking out STS towards Meteor after receiving reports of a couple of small items to clear while the bulk of the crew decided to return to our post-fire work on Sequoia Trail.
The crew put in 182 hours and thanks to Fremont Bainbridge, Daryn Bieri, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Cecil Coe, John Collins, Jacob Corbin, Mimi Guiney, Tommy Ha, Charles Jalgunas, Marc Koenig, Andrea Lee, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Janette Mello, Mike Peasland, Corrie Potter, Criag Ramsay, Devdutt Sheth, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Nico Wendell, Chris Young, and newcomers Jacob Grout and Lily Gao, for helping with an old fashion storm cleanup workday.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Chris Y, Daryn, Mimi, and Mike