JAN 2016 - Sequoia and Creeping Forest

We had a surprise group joining us this work day: the California Conservation Corp (CCC), Monterey Bay.  There were 8 of them and with 12 regular crew out that made for a great turn out for the start of the New Year.

Dale S. and Dale P. with the CCC group started off on Creeping Forest Trail clearing a 10", 12" and 28" redwood. Fortunately it was only about a hundred yards from the 1st jump off to Gazos Creek Rd. After clearing these trees part of the CCC crew volunteered to walk Creeping Forest back to Sky Line to the Sea and meet us at headquarters for lunch. Note: they had a hand saw with them.

After lunch, we drove up to Middle Ridge Rd to the turn around, we found 24" oak across Middle Ridge, the portion that goes off to the right up the hill. There was also a 10" oak across Gazos Creek Rd. between the two sections of Middle Ridge Rd. After clearing these trees we headed back for lunch. After lunch we headed back out Gazos to Creeping Forest again, the volunteer walkers had found a tree across the trail. It was a couple hundred yards back toward Sky Line to the Sea from Dec's tree. As Dale S. was getting his chain saw ready to go, I politely pointed out that wecould have taken out this 8" madrone with a hand saw.

 

I took a second crew to look for a reported blockage on Shadowbrook near Sempervirens Falls.  We didn't find anything but the falls.

  2nd Crew

Sempervirens Falls            Road up Slippery Rock

We hiked up Slippery Rock and over Hwy 236 along the Sequoia Trail.  About 1/2 mile down the other side we found a partially clear Fir.  We did a couple of cuts but my saw saw a too small for the 3-4' tree.  We clear the rest to reduce trip hazards and fixed up trail.

 The first crew was lead by Dale S. and Dale P. with CCC volunteers Andrew A., Daniel M., Ryan H., Trevor H., Nicholas G., Richard T., Charles C., Robert F. and the second crew was made up of Janie, Jan, Bill, Norm, David B., David P., Michelle, Peter, and me.  Total hour that were put in were 190.  That's a great start for the new year.

See you on the trails.

Jeff and Dale S.

Photos by: Jeff and Dale S.

Birds of the Day

American Robin

Common Raven

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Hairy Woodpecker

Townsend's Warbler

Steller's Jay

Hutton's Vireo

DEC 2015 - Holiday Party

I was in the kitchen with J finishing off the chowder and other stuff.  Here's more from Mike.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Holidays! It seems like it was just New Year's Eve, but the second Saturday of the month is this weekend and the Trail Crew will be out at Big Basin regardless of the weather. We already have reports of more trees down on the Creeping Forest Trail (deja vu for those out last month) and this week's rains will no doubt create more work. 

After four years of drought and quiet winters for the Trail Crew, it looks like we will have lots to do. Hope you can make it out Saturday.

December has become a month of traditions for the Trail Crew whether it's the Holiday Party in afternoon or hauling firewood in the morning. Last month we started the workday portion by splitting and hauling firewood for use in the Sempervirens Room fireplace on those cold wet days. While most of the Crew headed up to load firewood into a park truck, Peter and Mike stayed in the VC area and cut and split several logs that had been laying around. By time everything was finished we had moved and split enough wood to last the winter.

With still time to kill before the party we decided to follow up on a report of a tree blocking the Creeping Forest Trail near the top of the initial uphill climb. As most of the group drudged up the hill, David Bryan shot ahead and found what we were looking for - a Tan Oak and so much debris sprawled across the trail that we initially couldn't tell where the trail continued beyond the blockage. After cutting and removing all the small stuff it was fairly easy to chainsaw the trunk portion from the trail (even with my dull chain!).

Welcome Party: Kodi and Kaja

The afternoon was dedicated to what has become the traditional Trail Crew Holiday Party and Jeff and Jeannine were gracious enough to host the gathering and cook most of the meal. Jeff had promised a 'gourmet feast' and he was dead on as always. There was a whole lot of outstanding food (it was a food coma evening), but probably the highlight was Jeff's seafood chowder. He had started it two days before and even Jeff said it was one of his better efforts.

Good Friends and Good Food

Thanks to Norm Beeson, David Bryan, Bill Drulias, Peter and Michele Gelblum, Jan Hill, Janette Mello, Mike Peasland, David Philleo and Dale Stadelman, for their help in the park and Gene Nelson, Jack and Barbara Schultz, and Shelly Graham, for joining us for the party afterwards. And of course Jeff and Jeannie for making everything come together in the afternoon.

Even though it looks to be a wet winter ahead, the redwood forests have endured four years of drought and there have been several studies to track the impact of dry winters on redwoods. One study has been looking at ferns,another moisture loving plant, as an indicator of problems redwoods themselves may face as the result of climate change and the Save the Redwoods League is sponsoring a presentation on just this at Henry Cowell on Wed. Jan. 20th at 7pm, Details are below if you're interested.

  

Where: Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park Visitor Center

When: Wednesday, January 20, 7:00-9:00 pm

What Ferns Tell Us About Drought in the Redwoods

The height of the most common plant in the coast redwood forest is affected by how much rain and fog fall among the coast redwoods. Western sword fern, grows tall fronds in wet redwood forests of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties and much shorter fronds in the dry forests of Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. In dry years, sword ferns lose many of their fronds and show signs of stress before other species — like the redwoods themselves — do. For this reason, sword fern is an important indicator of climate change. Since 2012, Fern Watch volunteers have tracked the health of Western sword fern every year in more than 100 plots scattered across 11 coast redwood forests in Northern California.

Big Basin is all about history being the oldest California State Park and the Trail Crew has some history itself having been around for over 40 years. There is also the warning you often hear about not putting things out on the Internet as they never truly go away. I'll end this month's note with a little piece of Trail Crew history in the photo below which I found on the Internet recently. I forget who the responsible party is for the sign in the photo, but it proves that not all Trail Crew work is serious!

Happy New Year to everyone, hope you can make it out this Saturday and many times during the year.

Mike

NOV 2015 - Redwood Loop

It started out cool and we start a little early.  I arrived around 8:30 to scope out the work needed to repair the fence around the Redwood Loop Trail.  The Redwood Loop was one of the first things I worked on when I joined the BBVTC back in 1996.  Someone had the idea that instead of using the old style of using wire to secure the rails to the post that bolts would be better.  Well, between then and now the fence was back to using wire and the bolts were gone.

Unloading the Posts and Rails

 Wiring the Rails to the Posts

 

Work preping for the repairs

Lunch in the Amphitheater

Prepping to replace the posts 

 

 We finished around 4pm but there was still at least another good days work left.  We put in 93 hours with the help of Norm, Dale S., Jan, David P., Herman, Janette, Peter, Michelle, Mike, David B., and new member Barry and with help from park interpreter Susan.

 Our Dusky-footed Woodrat would like to reminder you of the Dec 12th Holiday Get Together

See you on the trails

Jeff

Birds of the Day

Robins

Pacific Wren

Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)

Steller's Jay

Acorn Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

Chestnut-back Chickadee

Spotted Towhee

Varied Thrush

Raven

SEP 2015 - Middleridge and Hollow Tree

So the day started as a typical for Santa Cruz County with a bright sunny morning greeting us.  We had 7 crew members show up and with a report of trees down on Middleridge we planned on driving the road up to Lane camp and work on the upper end of Hollow Tree Trail.  We had worked on Basin Trail up to Lane Camp in April and May but we ran out of time to complete the Hollow Tree section.

We didn't find any trees down on Middleridge except for a fir over the road near Ocean View Overlook.  It was passable but we decided to take it out anyway.  It didn't take long and then we were off to the next objective.

 

 Middleridge near Ocean View Overlook

We dropped 3 people off at Hollow Tree where you can reach it from Middleridge.  The rest of the crew drove up to Lane Camp to work on Hollow Tree towards the other crew.  There was some brushing but the trail was very open with the prep work for a prescribe burn completed earlier in the year.  We did run into 3 trees down at the midpoint between the crews.  Dale and the lower crew took care of the trees and they were done by the time the upper crew arrived.

 

 3 Trees down about 3/4 mile from Lane Camp

On the way back we came across a very bright green and yellow Garter Snake who wasn't very happy with the attention we were giving her.

 Garter Snake (does anyone know the species)?

There were still wildflowers in bloom and there was one last Rose still hanging in with Fall approaching.

Wild Rose

The crew put in 44 hours and I would like to thank Dale P., Janie, Jan, David P., David B., and Norm.  The year end is rapidly approaching.  Start thinking about the holiday pot luck in DEC.

See you on the trails

Jeff

Birds of the Day

American Robin

Acorn Woodpecker

Brown Creeper

Steller's Jay

Wrentit

Northern Flicker

Western Scrub Jay

Hutton's Vireo

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

AUG 2015 - Buzzard's Roost

I was out it the middle of the Sierra's so Peter was leading the crew of 2 with Janie joining him.  Here's Peter's report of what they worked on.

Janie and I were the only ones who showed up - is that an all-time low?  We had fun. We started by meeting with Susan and looking at the board - nothing else would have worked, because it was all either large trees that needed the chain saw that I didn't bring or repairs to signs and bridges. We went over the map with Susan about Buzzard's Roost, and she suggested we drive up, instead of hiking, and gave us the key to the one locked gate.

We drove up Pine Mountain Road and, after a couple wrong turns, saw a sign for Buzzard's Roost and headed there.  When the road was about to get REALLY steep, I mean REALLY REALLY steep, we parked at a place we could turn around in, in case there wasn't' another such place further along.  We trudged up the REALLY steep road, doing some clearing along the way as a reason to stop going uphill.  At one point, we cleared a bunch of REALLY prickly stuff with long sharp thorns.  We got to the top, but because we used the road instead of the trail, none of the directions worked.  We spent about an hour walking around and on a rock outcropping that we figured must be Buzzard's Roost because of the location, even though Janie kept saying that it didn't look like the place she remembered.  The problem was, there was no connector road and, in particular, no trial with a sign to not use it. But there was a rattlesnake.  I heard it before I saw it, and there it was, rattling away, all coiled up between rocks. I tried to get a picture, but it didn't come out.  It was exciting, though.  I don''t think I've seen one that close up before.

Anyway, we sort of gave up and headed down to the car, looking again for the connector or the blocked trial.  We very shortly saw what turned out to be the connector with the 4" pines across the trail.  We had missed it on the way up because there was a lot of manzanita shielding the entrance.  We cut the three pines and a lot of manzanita and cleared the connector trail.  We then decided to look for a place for lunch and headed up the trial and lo and behold, there was Buzzard's Roost as Janie remembered it.  We ate lunch there, and then decided to take a brief look for the blocked trail with the sign.  Sure enough, it was right where you said it would be.  There were a bunch of branches behind the sign, which should have been enough, but, sure enough an older guy walked out of the trail when we were there.  I asked him why he decided to ignore the sign, and he said he wanted a quiet place to eat lunch (there were a bunch of kids on Buzzard's Roost) and he wasn't going very far.  What are you going to do?  We added a lot of branches and some manzanita and the thorny plant to the barricade.  You'd have to REALLY want to go back there now, at least until the first storm blows it all down.

I'm attaching photos of the cleared connector trail, Janie working on that trail (which I took by accident), and the new barricade.

The crew put in 12 hours and I would like to thank both Peter and Janie for keeping the work day alive.  It wasn't the first time the crew was this small.  One day it was Mike and I and it was when we were building the ramp on the Kirsch Trail leading to the Schultz Bridge. We were putting in posts for the hand rail and we had to drill through a root with a rock bar because we had no choice.  The prickly things Peter mentioned were Chaparral Pea.  The thrones are sharp and get up to 2" long but it's the small ones you have to watch out for.

See you on the trails

Jeff and Peter

Photos by Peter

JUL 2015 - Eagle Rock

It was a smaller than usual group this morning with 6 of the crew ready for our now annual work day on Eagle Rock trail.  There have been Swifts . . . I mean a few trees reported down and working on the trail each year makes the brushing a bit easier.  The day started out clear meaning it was going to be a warm day.

 4" Tan Oak

There were a couple of small thinks that only required a hand saw and these were both before the bridge.

The bridge looked good but there were a couple of 2" wide boards missing but overall it was holding up after close to 25 years.  At the first lookout I was surprised to see a Western Tanager perched in a tree very close to us.

 Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana)

 Tough first start at a Knob Cone Pine

Dale and I guessed what we thought were the diameters of the trees from Kurt's photos from his scouting trip a couple of months ago.  This one and the final pine near the top were just about half the diameter we had guessed when we were at HQ.  Good to know.
 

Red Velvet Ant (Dasymutilla magnifica)

Up on the Rock we were treated to a few White-throated Swifts with one flying about 3 feet from Janie.  We also saw a Red Velvet Ant, which is actually a wasp and the female is capable of delivering a powerful sting.  Males can fly but female are wingless.  Adults drink nectar.  First time I ever saw one.

Eagle Rock is one of the harder trails and we saw a few small kids that probably took their first steps on the hike.  OK the parents probably helped.  Nice to see young kids being exposed to nature so early and maybe they will grow up respecting nature.  We put in 44 hours and I would like to thank Dale P., Janie, David P., Janette, and Herman.

See you on the trails

Jeff

Birds of the Day
3 White-throated Swift Aeronautes saxatalis
2 Anna's Hummingbird Calypte anna
1 Olive-sided Flycatcher Contopus cooperi
3 Pacific-slope Flycatcher Empidonax difficilis
1 Ash-throated Flycatcher Myiarchus cinerascens
1 Hutton's Vireo Vireo huttoni
1 Steller's Jay Cyanocitta stelleri
2 Western Scrub-Jay Aphelocoma californica
6 Common Raven Corvus corax
24 Violet-green Swallow Tachycineta thalassina
4 Chestnut-backed Chickadee Poecile rufescens
1 Brown Creeper Certhia americana
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa
4 Wrentit Chamaea fasciata
1 Western Tanager Piranga ludoviciana
1 Lazuli Bunting Passerina amoena

JUN 2015 - Last Chance

There was an off shore breeze that pushed out the fog leaving the beautiful blue Santa Cruz sky.  As we were getting set up I could smell the blooming Azaleas right outside HQ.  What a treat.

Western Azalea (Rhododendron occidentale)

I was expecting it to be warm so the 9 member crew headed to a cool spot in the park: Last Change trail.  Soon after hitting the trail we were greeted by a flock of Chickadees and numerous wild flowers.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)

Since we were into the Marbled Murrelet breeding season, we traded the chainsaw for the crosscut saw.  This saw works great after you get use to pulling only.

 

Elk Clover (Aralia californica)

The next blockage was another rotten tree and with a cut from the saw and a few whacks with the Pulaski this was cleared.

 

 

As I mentioned there were many wildflower along the trail

White Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea alba)

Red Larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule)

Globe Lily (Calochortus albus)

There were a couple of small things across the trail and some brushing to the end of the park boundary.

Forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica)

California Hedge Nettle (Stachys bullata)

Cricket (ID?)

Hairy Star Tulip (Calochortus tolmiei)

Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja linariaefolia)

It did warm up but since the trail runs along East Waddell creek it was relatively cool.  The crew put in 65 hours on a shorter than usual day and I would like to thank Dale P., Dale S., Janie, Norm, David B., Shyamal, Curt, and Janette.  The bird of the day was hearing an American Dipper in the area I have seen then the last 2 years.

See you on the trails.

Jeff 

Birds of the Day

1 Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) (Colaptes auratus [cafer Group])
1 Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)
12 Pacific-slope Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis)
3 Hutton's Vireo (Vireo huttoni)
4 Warbling Vireo (Vireo gilvus)
5 Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)
3 Common Raven (Corvus corax)
4 Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina)
9 Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)
6 Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus)
1 American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus)
3 Swainson's Thrush (Catharus ustulatus)
3 Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus)
2 American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
1 Orange-crowned Warbler (Oreothlypis celata)
1 Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia)
5 Wilson's Warbler (Cardellina pusilla)
11 Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) (Junco hyemalis [oreganus Group])
2 Purple Finch (Haemorhous purpureus)