After 18 months on Sequoia Trail, the July 12th workday brought us to the beginning of a new challenge as we began clearing the 1.8 mile Pine Mountain Trail that will eventually take us to Buzzards Roost and arguably one of the best viewpoints in Big Basin. We had made a scouting visit to the area on June 30th to scout out the new work area.
With a turnout of 22 for the workday and the info from the scouting trip, we decided it would be best to split into two crews to stay out of each others way. With the large crew anticipated, the sawyers began work an hour early so the first section of trail was at least somewhat passable when the bulk of the crew arrived.
Morning Briefing
Crew 1: Yellow and Crew 2: Orange
CREW 1
The first crew began its work at the trailhead immediately behind the old Blooms Creek Campground where the foot bridge had survived the 2020 fires making for easy access to the work area. Unlike other trails we've worked the past couple of years that were mostly overgrown with dense thickets of Ceanothus, this first section of trail was mostly woody blowdown debris we would find after winter storms in the before times.
The crew made steady progress as it cleared debris from the trail and moved everything into three off trail burn piles. As the work moved along, one of the sawyers glanced downhill to Blooms Creek and saw a patch of highly invasive Scotch Broom. Since the fires one of the major concerns was that invasive species such as Broom could overwhelm native plants, so the sawyer worked her way downhill to remove it and brought the debris up to the trail so it could be removed from the park completely.
CREW 2
Meanwhile, the second crew made a 7-8 minute walk along Hihn Hammond Rd to the intersection of Pine Mtn Fire Rd where the decking for the vehicle bridge had burned in the fires, but the steel beams remained so there was little problem accessing the section of East Ridge Trail that goes over to the intersection with Pine Mtn Trail.
This crew ran into less woody debris and more Ceanothus, which slowed progress; however the crew was able to complete three burn piles, start a fourth, and fell three hazard trees on the trail edge. The crew also came across a partially burned Soroptimist memorial grove sign and dedication bench and Sempervirens Fund was contacted afterwards to determine if they wanted them for archival purposes.
The crew put in 166 hours and everyone was excited about beginning a new trail. So thanks to Nan Bowman, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, Karen Cheeniyil, Santhosh Cheeniyil, John Collins Tom Condy, Katherine Davis, Mimi Guiney, Andrea Lee, John Martin, Jack Marshall, Salome Navarette, Mike Peasland, Aaron Shaw, Cammie Shaw, Marc Shaw, Doug Smith, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young and newcomer Kris Kiefer-Woolery, for getting things off to a good start.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Bruce, Karen, Mimi, and Mike