The Crew's March 9th workday was our second day of realignment work on Sequoia Trail as we cut the corner on the hillside above the Hwy 236 - Sky Meadow intersection and although trail and off trail areas burned equally during the 2020 fires, off trail areas create unique challenges.
Working in previously off trail environments can mean working in areas with unstable footing, but also encountering plants and wildlife where we want to build the trail. For the March 9th workday this meant a White Trillium and many Banana slugs.
The Trillium became obvious early in the day as we cut our way into a new area to find its white flower exactly in the middle of where the new trail was to go. We initially thought we might be able to mark the plant so people could work around it, but with a crew of 23 this seemed a gamble so we dug the plant out of the ground and moved it to a nearby site away from the work.
The Banana slugs bright color made them easy to spot as we worked along and easier to relocate to safer areas. By the end of the day we had relocated 14 to safe locations and saw an equal number in off trail areas, so it looked like we were working in prime Banana slug habitat.
The work itself was fairly routine in clearing brush and building burn piles and by the end of the day we had reached the end of the area that had been flagged.
At the end of the flagged area the crew encountered a huge Doug fir that will need to be removed, but not today. All there was left was to pack it out.
The crew put in 191 hours and thanks to Daryn Bieri, Fremont Bainbridge, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Cecil Coe, John Collins, Jacob Corbin, Tommy Ha, Marc Koenig, Andrea Lee, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Whitney Mitchell, Mike Peasland, Dale Petersen, Evan Rebesque, Devdutt Sheth, Zosia Stafford, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, Jason Zheng, and newcomer Steve Kennedy, for their effort on a very productive workday.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Daryn, Fremont, Mike, and Whitney