The Trail Crew is fortunate that workdays typically go as planned, but not always and May 31st was one of those days! The first warm day of the season (and hotter than forecasted), more work than anticipated, and problems with two chainsaws all made for a challenging day.
Morning Planning
Most of the crew began work from the N. Escape Rd trailhead to Sequoia Trail with advance reports saying there was 'minor' wrap-up work on the first stretch of trail, so we were hoping for a fast start to the day and good progress. It was then that we ran into updated work instructions saying the the trail shoulder needed to be cleared beyond the usual specs which slowed progress considerably.
More vegetation than expected needed to be cut and moved to established burn piles or dragged off trail to out of sight cut and disperse areas while trailside down woody debris needed to be removed as well. All while the temperature had reached 80 by lunch break and continued to climb afterwards.
A smaller crew began the day hoping to finish work on the Slippery Rock side of the 236 trailhead and had initial success as they did cleanup work from previous workdays, established a new burn pile site and moved debris from earlier work closer to the burn pile area.
But a chainsaw that had been working earlier in the day decided not to restart and after multiple attempts to resolve the issue someone decided to hike down to the lower crew to retrieve another saw. The replacement saw worked for a while, but after lunch began having the same restart problem (bad fuel issue?) as the first saw which seemed like a sign that perhaps it should be a short workday.
Both crews decided it was best to quit about an hour early as the temperature had climbed to the upper 80's (87 at the N. Escape trailhead) for the lower crew and above 90 for those working on the ridge off 236.
Pre and Post Trail Clearing
The outcome for the day was decent progress for the Hwy 236 crew, but they did not finish as hoped while the N. Escape crew's 'fast' start only took it about one-third of a mile from the road.
The crew put in 109 hours and thanks to Guy Albertelli, Fremont Bainbridge, Daryn Bieri, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Tom Condy, Mimi Guiney, Tommy Ha, Janie Leifhelm, Jack Marshall, Joe Mitchell, Mike Peasland, Devdutt Sheth, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn and Chris Young, for their help on the first hot workday of the season.
