Most Trail Crew workdays provide a sense of achievement as we begin the day with no sign of a trail anywhere thanks to the dense vegetation regrowth since the 2020 fires and by the end there is a walkable path through the forest that did not exist just hours before. Our most recent workday was not one of those days.
June 1st was a continuation of earlier work on Sequoia Trail when we cleared the trail itself, but the area on either side of the trail needed attention as well. There would be no grand progress, just incremental improvement on the earlier work. The goal was to clear all vegetation 2-3 feet from the trail edge on both sides which is standard procedure, but with the additional challenge of shortening the 5-6 ft tall Ceanothus beyond the cleared area so it did not collapse through the newly cleared zone and onto the trail.
It was an ambiguous enough challenge that we began the morning reviewing a sketch of what the work should look like with the understanding that trail work was sometimes more art than science. Remove too much vegetation and it could begin to look like a roadway. Not removing enough could allow the remaining vegetation to droop onto the trail.
We used a couple of borrowed weed wrenches on a recent workday and they proved so efficient in removing stubs from the trail that we purchased two for the Crew. The larger of the two is best for pulling the thick stem Ceanothus we're starting to encounter. They're stored in the tool stall along with everything else and have been marked with the yellow and green Trail Crew colors. Clearing the trail shoulder was routine, but it took thought on how much to trim beyond that using loppers, pole saws and a hedger. Some of the Ceanothus growth seemed dense enough to support itself so we left those intact, but we'll need to see how it looks on the next workday.
And as with previous workdays, all cut debris was dragged along the trail to openings where it could be tossed down to Sky Meadow Rd below where it was staged until a chipper is brought in.
The crew put in 119 hours and thanks as always to those who helped out - Fremont Bainbridge, Roger Beaudoin, Daryn Bieri, Nan Bowman, Alison Breeze, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Alex Clines, Cecil Coe, John Collins, Dale Elliott, Tommy Ha, Marc Koenig, Janie Leifhelm, Mike Peasland, and Devdutt Sheth.
Sequoia Trail and Sky Meadow Road
There was a recent NY Times opinion piece on the value of park trails ('America’s Trails Are a Wonder, and They Need Our Help'), the overwhelming amount of work needed to maintain them and not enough workers, paid and unpaid, to do it. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/25/opinion/parks-hiking-outdoors.html
The article focuses on National Parks, but State Parks face the same problems with District Trails Manager Chris Pereira mentioning last year that he has trouble finding people to accept open positions because of the low pay, hard work and the spike schedule (8 days on, 4 off). As the article says, 'fewer and fewer people are willing to do this hard work, either for money or the satisfaction of donating their time'.
It goes on to say that trail crew work, paid or volunteer, can create connection to a place and ends with a quote from an National Park Service trail worker - 'On trail crews people value you for the things that really matter. Are you a hard worker? Do you look out for the community? There is no way to hide it out here'.
Somewhere near the beginning of this note there was a thank you to those who were out on the June 1st workday, but also thanks to everyone over the Trail Crew's 55 year history. Curiosity may bring a person out once, it takes dedication to keep coming back.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Alexander, Alison, Mike, and Roger