Over the decades brushing a trail (aka QC work) has never been a favorite Trail Crew activity. So much so that on pre-fire workdays we often had smaller turnouts when brushing was on the schedule.
Clearing the Fireroad
The objective of the work is to clear vegetation from trail edges so it doesn't impact the trail corridor itself, but it can sometimes be tedious work. Since the 2020 fires we've tried to stay current with brushing as we worked on clearing the trail itself. Letting trail clearing get too far ahead of brushing only meant we would have multiple days of brushing to catch up on at some point.
That's what happens for the Trail Crew's July 11th workday. But with a twist!
We had mostly finished brushing work the prior workday, but because Ceanothus has taken over much of the redwood forest since the fires and tends to droop over the trail as it becomes taller, new guidelines were introduced just before our last workday that mandated an 8-ft clearance on both sides of the trail rather than the previous 3-ft.
This fated us to another full day of brushing as we dropped back to the fire road to clear even more vegetation from edges, dragging the debris along the trail to the keyhole and sending it up to the fire road where it was left for a wood chipper that would be brought out at some point.
And it was a hot day with temperatures hitting the 90 degree mark at lunch.
Despite the work and the unexpectedly warm day we still had a good turnout of 20. The crew put in 148 hours and thanks to Jim Brooks, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Davin Chan, Tom Condy, Drew Granzella, Janie Leifhelm, Jack Marshall, Mike Peasland, Nitya Ramanan, Marc Shaw, Eric Voelkel, Kenna Wang, Brian Washburn, Bruce Washburn, Chris Young, Daniel Zichuhr, and newcomers Garrett Brooks, Adrian Rahardja and Samuel Rahardja, for the extra effort.
by Mike and Jeff
photos by Chris, Mike, and Nitya