The 24th was an unusual Saturday in August for Boulder Creek in that there were puddles on the road from an unseasonal sprinkle of rain during the night. It was a nice cool respite from the previous workday that spiked to 100F after lunch.
We had a good crew of twenty four show up and we headed off to continue work on the Sequoia trail, now a bit north of the Watashi campground and closing in on Sempervirens Falls. There was a bit of confusion at first, as we adjusted to the absence of Mike Peasland who was a bit under the weather but the good part of working on the same trail for a few months is that most everyone knew the drill.
We worked for three hours until 11:30am and accomplished quite a lot. We have skipped a section of Sequoia trail where a tree has fallen into a drainage and Chris P. needs to decide what he wants to do with alignment and mitigation. Just past that drainage we are back on the original trail alignment and what was a narrow, obscured path two weeks ago is now an open and spacious highway, freed from Ceanothus stumps that were growing up in the middle of the tread.
Chris Y dropped some small dead trees towards the beginning of the work area while Rory continued blazing the leading edge of the trail. We used 'keyholes' cut down to the road to move material out to Sky Meadow Road for chipping. We have months of materials stacked along the road now and are still waiting for the Park's chipper to become available.
Trail Work is Fun
At 11:30am we returned the tools to Rory's truck and the rest of the crew drove back to Boulder Creek to meet for lunch at the Sawmill with Fargo the pup. There was much praise for the food and location there, so it appears to be a much appreciated break.
Matt from State Parks assures us that we'll have more trail flagged for the next workday. We can only hope the weather will be as nice as this time.
The crew put in 132 hours even with the short day and thanks to Dary Bieri, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Cecil Coe, Dale Elliott, Ori Faigon, Justin Farris, Michele Estrin-Gelblum, Peter Gelblum, Mimi Guiney, Charles Jalgunas, Marc Koenig, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Ann McCormick, Whitney Mitchell, Dale Petersen, Devdutt Sheth, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, Jason Zheng, and newcomers Michele Zheng, Ian Mitchell, and Ashby Mitchell.
by Chris Y and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Charles, Chris Y, Dale E, Daryn, Mimi, and Whitney