Five days before the Trail Crew's Oct. 3 workday the weather forecast was calling for temperatures in the mid-90's for the upcoming weekend and 48 hours beforehand an official heat advisory was posted for the entire Bay Area. And working on the side of Pine Mountain near the 2,100 foot Buzzards Roost summit seemed to guarantee it would be hot.
Target Top of Pine Mountain
Everything was primed for a low turnout day, but despite the difficult conditions 17 crew members were up to the challenge as we joined with a new CCC crew in a joint effort on Pine Mtn Trail. After a brief morning meeting between the two crews, the C's decided to stay with their plan to begin work at the summit despite the warm conditions while the BBVTC would work a lower on the trail. The C's effort was a continuation of our earlier clearing work at the top as they removed Knobcone pine stobs from the trail tread and cutback overgrown vegetation on both sides of the trail.
Meanwhile the BBVTC focused on finding a home for numerous sections of cut debris that had been left along the trail edge during earlier work.
With uncertainty about how long we would be able to work, the plan was to re-establish a highline and safety line down one of the keyholes between the fire road and trail so after carpooling to the trailhead people could move quickly down to the work area and debris could be moved up to the road for disposal.
After setting up the highline and safety line rigging, the majority of the crew descended to the trail where they began collecting debris and attaching it to the highline so it could be pulled up the hill to the road.
Meanwhile others moved further along the trail searching for piles of cut debris on the trail edge that could move into off trail hiding locations.
And some of the Crew were able to hike forward to check on the CCC work and enjoy the view from the top at Buzzards Roost.
End of Day Hike Out
By 10, the morning coolness had disappeared and by 11 it was noticeable warmer. At noon we had reached a decision point. Do we break for lunch or call it a day due to the quickly increasing temperature?
One person's smart watch said it was already 90, another said 92, and given our checkered history of work productivity after lunch we decided to call it a day. It would still be another 45 minutes before we were off the mountain and back where the day had begun.
The crew put in 110 hours and thanks to Fremont Bainbridge, Daryn Bieri, Jeff Bowers, Nan Bowman, Rory Brooks, Karen Cheeniyil, Santhosh Cheeniyil, Tom Condy, Suzanne Farrell, Peter Gelblum, Andrea Lee, Joe Mitchell, Mike Peasland, Marc Shaw, Kenna Wang, Chris Young, and Daniel Zichuhr for proving again the Trail Crew shows up despite the weather conditions.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Daryn and Mike