January 14, 2012 - STS & Pine Mt.

It was a very cool morning with the temperature varying base on where we were.  It was very cool at HQ but it warmed noticeably at higher elevations.  There were some hikers in shorts at 9am with the temperature around 34F.  Figure that one.

STS Crew

We'll there were 13 members out so we split up into 2 crews with Dale P. heading up one to take care of at least 3 reported trees down with the largest being 14" and I took one crew back out to the 2 4ft redwoods on STS between the slide and the Sunset connector.

We had the 48" saw and with Dale S. saw we were able to work on two areas.  The crew was 5 strong and was made of Dale S., Norm, Michelle, Peter, and me.

There was a 30" redwood with splintered ends and the upper section was being supported by a small Tan oak.  We decided to cut off the sharp ends and bring down the section above the trail.

The other area was the 2 4ft redwoods, which Dale worked on with Norm spotting.  Here you can see these were long sections.

 There were two ways around, which were crawling under the two trees or

off to the left there was a steep way down.  This look ok when it is dry but could be a problem when the rain starts.

Dale working on one of the 4 footers.

Because of the position of the 30" redwood and having a 24" bar we had to use a Pulaski to notch out a section so the saw could cut through the entire diameter.  This required 3 cuts for each section.  Luckily, we only needed to make 2 section for 6 total cuts.  The upper section was cut above the oak and with a lever and pushing hard with feet the entire section was cleared off the trail in one section cut and in one shot. 

The 48" saw started giving us problems so we weren't able to clear the 4 footers but we did open the section by the 30" redwood.

Pine Mountain Crew

Here's the report from the second crew thanks to Mike.

While Jeff's team dragged the Howard King saw out on the Sunset trail to take care of the large trees from last month, Dale P., Janie, Bill, Janette, Tom, Fran and Mike set out on the 4+ mile, 1,100 foot, hike to Buzzard Roost to check on three reported small-medium size trees on the trial.

The first tree was about an 18-inch tan oak that we found on the East Ridge Trail between the Pine Mtn fire road and where East Ridge meets up with the Buzzard Roost Trail. Although the tree was larger than expected, Dale Petersen made several cuts and we were able roll two large sections neatly off the trail. 

The second tree was a much smaller tan oak that was quickly taken care of. Afterwards, as we approached the turn just below where the trail recrosses the fire road, we saw that hikers had once again reopened the volunteer trail that when taken requires a scamper up a steep hillside to reach the fire road. We have closed this section several times in the past, but with no signage it keeps being reopened. We again blocked the trail entrance with logs and branches, brushed over the entire length of closed trail to make it less obvious, and hoped for the best.

There was supposed to be a third tree on the trail between the fire road and the top, but we never did find it.

After eating lunch on Buzzard Roost and enjoying the views, we broke into smaller groups with Dale and Tom hiking ahead to look for any down trees between East Ridge Trail where we started and the Blooms Creek Campground (they found and removed three) while the remainder of the group slowly brushed their way back down the trail. We finished at 3:30 after a long day and steep hike.

The crews put in 97.5 hours thanks to Tom, Dale S., Dale P., Janie, Bill, Janette, Norm, Fran, Francis, Michelle, Peter, Mike, and me.  Great start of a new year and on our way to another 1000+ hour year.

See you on the trails.

Jeff

Low bird count with 4 Wild Turkeys at the Sempervirens Lodge at Little Basin being spotted by locals coming in from Boulder Creek, 2 Robins, and about 10 Varied Thrush.

Reports by Mike and Jeff

Photos by Jeff and Michelle

December 10 2011 - Tale of 3 Crews

Two weeks ago we had a wind storm with winds up to 50 mph and it took out the power in the Valley for up to 5 days with our power being out for 4 days.  So you would expect that there would be numerous reports on the big board, but there were only a few reports.  We had a great turn out for our last work day of 2011 with a total of 19 volunteers.  We decided to break up into three groups, I lead one back to the Shadowbrook slide to put up detour signs, Dale P. took a crew from HQ up STS towards the Connector on report of a 10" Oak with a whip saw, and Dale S. took a crew up to Sunset and Middleridge to take care of a slide on Sunset and to look at a report of two 4 foot redwoods down on STS.  So off we went.

Along Shadowbrook there was only a few small items to take care of with most being branches on the trail.  We placed the detour signs and decided to go back along East Ridge Trail.

On the downward side of East Ridge we came across a very large branch that sticking strait out of the ground.

The last thing we came across was an oak across Shadowbrook before the campground but had to leave it since we only had a small hand saw but after clearing around it before that was the end of the day.

The Dale S. group first cleared a small slide caused by a Douglas fir that had fell across Sunset Trail.  After that was cleared, they headed off to a couple 4 foot diameter trees across the STS trail.

Looking across a gully, we saw the two trees, and off to the right of them was the Dale P. group.

They were busy clearing the trail from their end, as a tree had come down there also. They were able to clear that tree from the trail.  As we came around the last turn to the trees, the trail didn't look too bad.  All the fun stuff was on the other side. The trail was covered with limbs from these three trees, all the way to where Dale P. group started, about 100 feet away and they couldn't see the other two trees because there was a turn in the trail just before them. 

After we cleared the trail, we tunneled under the two large trees so that hikers could safely pass by.

We ended the day with all the groups meeting up at HQ.  There was a Boy Scout Group out, well 3 adults and 1 Scout, a new member Travis, and most of the regulars Gene, Janette, Janie, Bill, Dale P., Josh, Francis, Tom, Dale S., Norm, Micheal, and me.  We racked up 120 hours for the day and 1045.5 hours for the year.  This is the second year we broke 1000 hours and the most since I've been keeping record in 2006.  Thanks to all.

Another thanks for Dell, Carol, and Jeannine for cooking and getting the food together for the afternoon get together.  It was a good turn out with 28 people showing up.  The big hits were the abalone and salmon cakes, the smoke chicken, and the pot roast (as usually).  It was a good time and a great way to end the year.

I would like to wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season and hope to see you next year as we keep our favorite Park's trails clear and safe.

See you on trails.

Jeff

A special thanks to Dale S. for photos and write up on there activities.

Here's the bird list for the day

4  Steller's Jays
7  Hermit Thrush
20 Varied Thrush (most along East Ridge)
2  Pacific Wren
6 Chestnut-backed Chickadee
1  Raven
1 Pygmy Nuthatch
4 Acorn Woodpeckers
2  Brown Creepers
2 Band-tailed Pigeon (Near the top of East Ridge)
4 Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)
2  Townsend Warblers
1  Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1  Hairy Woodpecker

November 12 2011 - Shadow Brook

We were back in the park in the HQ area.  There was a report of a down tree on Shadow Brook Trail about 200 m east of the Schultz bridge at the Kirsch Trail.  It was there and not much of a problem.

 We took tools to take care of a slide but this was a total trail wash out, which required us to follow the detour through the tent cabins.

Lunch was at the bottom of Slippery Rock and along the way the mushrooms were springing up.  Some were even in decay from the October rains.

We did more brushing than clearing and completed the loop around Sequoia through the campgrounds back to the Kirsch trail.

I would like to thank the 13 volunteers who put in  85 hrs combined for a total of 926 hours for the year.  A good turn out for the party will put us over 1000 hrs for the second year in a row.  Hope to see you next month.

See you on the trails

Jeff

October 8 2011 - RDO

We were back out to the coast at RDO. There was some brushing on the trails, which was taken care of by a crew of three and the rest of the 12 were sent to the Nature Center. There was 3 jobs here and they were to remove a Myrtle to make room for a birding scope (yeah), planting a large board, and securing self guided trail sign posts.
Start with the holes

Measure up the posts

Plant the sign


After lunch we headed out STS to a slide area about a mile past the Twin Redwood Campground. We had opened this section a last October. We attacked this like the beams for the Schulz bridge: make it wider than you need. Slide narrowed the area to a foot path.

We all know what this reminds us of

Mean while, the real work is being done by.

We left this root last time.

It almost got the better of one member.

This was one of our longest days, which ended around 5. It was a little longer for a couple of us but we did put in 110 hours, which put us within 160 hours to the magical 1000 mark. I would like to thank everyone that showed up, which were Tom, Dale1, Sara, Josh, Dale2, Gene, Janette, Francis, Janie, Bill, Michelle, and me. So most by now know that I'm an avid birder so for the bird count there were 35 species identified with the most notable being an Osprey, Kingfisher, and Rail.

Hope to see you soon on the trails.

Jeff

September 2011 - STS - Timm's - Sunset Loop

We were back at the park HQ this month with a plan to brush Pine Mountain trail but the big board had 5 trees down on the Skyline to the Sea (STS), Alternate, and Timm's Creek trails. We split up to take care of a couple of things, one to open up the burnt out redwood on the Redwood Loop.
A second crew took care of fir that had fallen across Dool trail very near STS. The tree had fallen from the picnic area off of Gazos Creek fire road across the ravine landing on the trail (close to 100 feet at least).
It took about a half hour to clear the trail but it looked great after the work was done.
The two crews came together at the regular spot at Middle Ridge and Sunset intersection. The Loop crew first took care of a fire pit off Middle Ridge and then we headed down Sunset to the Connector then up STS towards the first obstruction - 2 Tan Oaks.
It took 3 cuts to clear the trail then we were off to the second area on the Alternate trail that parallels STS.
This was an easy clear but there was also some brushing required since we haven't been on this trail for a number of years. As we headed toward the last report on Timm's Creek trail we came across these bright blue berries.
Red Clintonia (Clintonia andrewsiana) Family liliaceae (lily), Common Name: bead lily
The board said that the tree down on Timm's Creek was 2-3 feet but we figured it was probably 1-2 feet and the small 14" bar saw would do the trick, plus it's a lot lighter than my Husqvarna 55.
On a redwood, we came across this Wood Wasp Urocerus gigas, which was about 3 inches long.
It turned out that the tree was close to 4 feet and that would require a bigger saw. We cleaned up around the tree to make it easier to climb over and then started back up Timm's Creek and then along Sunset. It's been years since we did this loop in this direction and I now know why. Going back STS is a gradual stead climb out but Timm's has a steep section up to Sunset and then Sunset has 3 steep sections over 2.5 miles, which seems to take forever.

We hiked close to 6 miles making for a long day, plus it was humid from the remanence of a monsoon from Arizona. There was 10 members out and I would like to thank Dale P., Dale S., Fran, Herman, Gene, Norm, Tom, Bill, and Janie for all the hard work. We put in 85 hours on our way to maybe another 1000+ hour year. We have put in 731 hours so far with 269 to reach 1000 hours.

See you on the trail

Jeff

August 2011 - Myer's Loop

Our friend from the Sempervirens Fund, Linda was is need of the BBVTC support in clearing Myer's Loop. We haven't been out to Myer's Loop (also know as Micheal's Loop) in the most southern part of Castle Rock State Park since May 2009. This is a beautiful section of mixed forest from chaparral to oak to redwoods.
There were 13 crew members out so we decided to split up with one group starting from the bottom and a second starting from the top. The top section started out in a Tan Oak forest.

We reached the top and started the decent and slowly the forest turned into redwoods.

In the upper section there was some brushing and we had to reroute a section of the trail around a oak that had fallen on the trail.

There were numerous fallen trees but an interest one was this one.
A number of oaks fell across the trail with the largest falling through two trees and across the trail.
It took one cut and when it was cut through the 30 foot section slowing swung across the trail and ended up 5 feet off the trail.

Every few meters there was another tree across the trail and when we met up with the crew coming up from the bottom we reached a Madrone that was very interesting. Take a look at the video.

The two crews cleared 31 trees from the loop with the bottom crew clearing 15 with the largest being 24" and the top crew clearing 16 with the largest being the 20" Madrone.

It was a great work day with the addition of a new volunteer. I would like to thank everyone for a record day on clear trail blockages. Thanks to Dale S., Janie, Bill, Francis, Gene, Janette, Josh, Tom, Peter, Michelle, Fran, Tim, and me. We put in 91 hours and year to date we have accumulated 646 volunteer hours.

See you on the trails

Jeff