October's workday looked to be a full day with chainsaw restrictions from the Murrelet nesting season lifted and problems on Dool, Pine Mountain and Sequoia Group Camp trails, to deal with.

The biggest issue was going to be a 5-foot Doug fir on Dool just below Gazos Creek Fire Rd that had closed the trail since May. We had requested the State Trail Crew leave a splitting maul and steel wedges at HQ so we could split the rounds as they came off the tree, but unfortunately the request fell through the cracks and sent us on an early morning scramble to find replacements and delayed the work. Fortunately the Pine Mtn/Sequoia Group Camp crew decided to head out for their work rather than wait for the Dool crew to get itself untracked.

Sometimes trail work doesn't go quite as imagined and our September workday seemed to be one of those days. The plan was to spend the morning working with the State Crew on a new bridge on Skyline-to-Sea near the Maddock Cabin Site with the afternoon reserved for prepping the Sky Meadow Ramada for the October overnight.

It's been a LONG time since we've done actual trail construction. The type of grunt work that is important to ensuring Big Basin maintains its reputation for having a great trail system, but it is tiring and sends you home with aching muscles at the end of the day.

A GREAT summer turnout of 17 on our July work day, which included two newcomers. We worked the Sky-line to the Sea (STS) Trail just beyond Creeping Forest with the State Crew. The July workday really began back in February when we worked on clearing a 4-ft Doug fir from the Skyline-to-Sea Trail just north of Creeping Forest.

We met as usual at HQ and 6 crew members showed up and 4 new members. We drove up to Eagle Rock trailhead to address 7 trees reported by Kurt Leal that were in various states of blocking the path.  We left Dale S car at the bottom of Little Basin Road and then we all piled into two trucks with Dale P and new guy Mike S. driving to the trailhead.

Working with the Trail Crew often provides new opportunities like hiking a seldom used trail like Last Chance, driving the fire roads to work in the backcountry, and learning about different aspects of the park's history. Logging has played a large role in the history of the Santa Cruz Mountains and during our May workday we had the opportunity to see a logging demonstration on Redtrees property just north of China Grade.

The initial plan for the April workday was to have two crews, but with an excellent turnout of 17 we decided to make it three crews with one group removing a tan oak jumble near the campfire center, the second tackling a redwood blocking the East Ridge Trail behind the Blooms Creek Campground and the third following up on a Kurt Leal trail report of numerous trees on Creeping Forest Trail.

March may bring the official beginning of Spring, but the the Trail Crew workday still felt very much like winter with rain, mud, and temps never getting above the mid-40's but we still had a great turnout of 12 people for a long workday. We were able to split into three crews, with one removing a large Doug fir on Creeping Forest at Dool, one making the long drive to the Berry Creek Falls area and the final crew driving out Johansen to the upper Hollow Tree area.

A couple of days before BBVTC work day, Kurt was surveying the trail for us and encountered a rare snow storm. Three crews work on clearing fire roads and 2 worked on STS. Dale P and David P. drove out Johansen Fire Rd from Lane Trail Camp to the Sandy Point area to deal with many issues along the road, Chris, John C. and Janie, worked on clearing a large 48” Doug Fir on STS just beyond Creeping Forest, and the remainder handled problems further along STS and hopefully the upper Hollow Tree and Meteor Trails.

The New Year got off to a good start with 12 regular Trail Crew members, 2 newcomers, and 3 people from the California Conservation Corp working on their community service hours. Since we are just getting into the busy chainsaw season, John Collins held a brief review of chainsaw safety along with how to properly take care of hand tools (essentially clean the dirt off them at the end of the day).