Green - Existing Keyhole
Red - April 4 Progress
Blue - Identified area for new keyhole
The April 4th effort was another two crew day as the push to complete work on Sequoia Trail before it opens to the public is in its final stages and park staff asked if we could double back and do QC work on the stretch between Jay Camp and Wastahi that had become a little shaggy with regrowth in recent months.
With the timeline constraint this work was our priority for the day, but we also wanted to continue the current work on Pine Mtn Trail. Fortunately, with a good size crew of 22 we were able to split in half to accomplish both goals.
Sequoia Crew
The Sequoia crew began its work by carpooling up Sky Meadow Rd to the old Wastahi campground area with the plan to work downhill toward Jay Camp near the old park headquarters. All the burn piles that were constructed along the trail during the initial trail clearing had been burned by the resource management group, so the biggest challenge for the day would be finding out of sight locations to hide any new material.
Fortunately most of the work was typical brushing, so not a lot of new debris was generated. For most of the crew the day was a chance to revisit an area we had not seen in 18 months and take a look at the improvements the State crew made after we completed the initial clearing work.
Pine Mountain Crew
Meanwhile the other half of the crew resumed work on Pine Mtn Trail above the fire road with a couple of sawyers starting an hour early so they could safely fell several hazard trees along the trail before everyone else arrived.
We ended the previous workday by staging a lot of cut debris along the trail edge and this became the initial focus when the bulk of the crew arrived and began the process of moving material up to the fire road where it would be left for wood chipping at a later date.
Meanwhile a sawyer continued clearing the trail further ahead which created additional material to move up to the road.
Progress along the trail was taking us to a point where the trail would begin pulling away from the fire road above us, so after lunch some of the crew went looking for the next keyhole site (a temporary access area between two trails or in this case a trail and the fire road) and found a probable location at the point the trail stops running parallel to the road.
And in a bit of good luck for the day, we came across a huge 5-ft diameter Doug fir that had fallen across the trail and could have made passage beyond it difficult were it not for the gap under it that only required a bit of ducking.
We'll leave it in place as District crew prefers to use block and tackle equipment to move fallen trees in one or two large sections rather than cutting it into multiple smaller sections that need additional effort.
Packing it Out
The crew put in 162 hours and thanks to Fremont Bainbridge, Daryn Bieri, Jeff Bowers, Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Andrew Fiatal, Tommy Ha, Andrea Lee, Janie Leifhelm, John Martin, Janette Mello, Joe Mitchell, Thanh Nguyen, Mike Peasland, Andrew Sanchez, Devdutt Sheth, Angelina Thomas, Brian Washburn, Kris Kiefer-Woolery, Chris Young, and Daniel Zichuhr, for supporting two successful work crews.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Jeff Bowers and Mike