With many Trail Crew regulars away on summer travels, we decided to make the August 22nd workday a return to our roots by doing maintenance on an open trail.
Some on the Crew have done personal time hikes in the past couple of months and reported that a section of Skyline-to-Sea Trail (STS) was becoming overgrown while park staff said there were visitor reports of several small-medium size trees down on Sequoia Trail below 236.
So with a plan in place and a turnout of 13 we headed out! None of the work appeared very challenging, so we split into two crews with one hiking up Sequoia Trail from N. Escape Rd toward 236 while the bulk of the crew worked nearby STS between the bottom of Sequoia over to Gazos Creek Fire Rd.
Most of the STS work was the typically trail edge vegetation encroaching on the trail itself with several sections of Ceanothus and horsetail growing onto the trail.
During the work we discovered a large number of burn piles that had never been burned and since it had been a couple of years since they were constructed they were now overgrown by trail edge vegetation. With no apparent plan to burn them, we removed the plastic sheeting covering them that was intended to keep them dry until ignited.
We have long presumed that burn piles that were constructed as part of the park's fire recovery work would at least become temporary wood rat nests, but when we removed the sheeting from one burn pile there were a couple of Santa Cruz garter snakes resting comfortably on top of the debris.
Meanwhile the Sequoia crew found and cleared several small-medium trees blocking the trail just below 236 where it often gets windy. They also received a vague report of a down tree in the vicinity of STS and Hollow Tree but didn't find anything before calling it a day.
With the vast majority of our work since the 2020 fires focused on opening new sections of trail in areas of the park still closed to the public, it seemed strange having visitors pass as we worked. Most said 'thanks for the work' as they passed which was a nice recognition that even open trails are constantly changing and need ongoing maintenance.
The crew put in 99 hours and thanks to Fremont Bainbridge, Rory Brooks, John Collins, Peter Gelblum, Mimi Guiney, Andrea Lee, John Martin, Whitney Mitchell, Thanh Nguyen, Mike Peasland, Angelina Thomas, Kris Kiefer-Woolery and Chris Young, for the work.
by Mike and jeff
photos by Andrea, Mike, and Mimi