Since the CZU fires in 2020, we've watched the Ceanothus grow taller and thicker every season and wondered what impact it would have on future workdays. The short answer is to make the work even more difficult! The Trail Crew's July 13th workday brought us to the stretch of Sequoia Trail between the old Wastahi Campground and Semperviren Falls and thickest Ceanothus we've encountered to date.
On routine workdays we can typically send a single chainsaw person out front of the crew to make the initial cut to identify where the trail was to go, but July 13th was a different beast. The amount regrowth in the area was so thick that after cutting only a narrow game trail the amount of debris that needed to be removed was thigh deep making it difficult to move through the area.
Clearly our process needed improvement, so in addition to the single sawyer we sent in a mini crew of swampers to remove slash from the immediate work area so other crew members could access the area to remove additional debris and perform work to widen the trail and remove stubs from the trail path.
Even with a crew of 21 for the day it was slow going and in the end we had only a tunnel trail that will need lots of additional work on future workdays.
Lunch on the Tarmac
We ended the day less than five minutes from Semperviren Falls, so we decided to make the short walk along Sky Meadow Rd to enjoy the view and made an unexpected discovery. There are two Semperviren Falls, the lower one that before the fire visitors could see from the viewing platform and an upper falls immediately above that has been hidden behind vegetation for decades.
Sempervirens Waterfalls (watercolor by Bruce Washburn)
Sempervirens Falls (above Top), Upper (bottom left), Lower (bottom right)
Hiking out
The crew put in 176 hours and thanks to Fremont Bainbridge, Nan Bowman, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Cecil Coe, Dale Elliott, Justin Farris, Mimi Guiney, Tommy Ha, Steve Kennedy, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Joe Mitchell, Mike Peasland, Craig Ramsay, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young and newcomers Cammie Hunt and Marc Shaw, for all the work!
Banana Slug and a young Madrone
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Joe, Mike, and Mimi