Adopt-A-Trail Reports

3N93 Third Workday

    by | May 25th, 2008

    Tom, Katheryn, Chuck, Alycia, Aaron, Cody, Braden, Max, Sarah, Rick, Julie, Kevin and Nick met at the ranger station on a very chilly and overcast Memorial Day weekend. Those who came up through Running Springs saw snow on the ground! Despite the fronts coming through all weekend, the trails outside of Fawnskin were just damp enough to keep the dust down.

    We aired down at the gate and made our way to the trailhead. The vegetation is starting to sprout and the area is looking alot more green than a couple of weeks ago. On to the tasks at hand!

    Project 1: Widen Off-Camber Bench

    This has been a scary spot for a while now, and it’s only been getting worse. We decided to tackle this task with hand tools. We all took turns with axes and shovels to level out the trail. We gathered rocks to reinforce the downhill slope. In less than two hours we had it leveled out and safely passable. This will become a future monitoring point for erosion and normal wear and tear.

    Project 2: Remove Tree from Trail

    This tree got bumped around during our last trail maintenance run with the truck removal. We decided to get it out of the way once and for all by winching it off the trail.

    Project 3: Widen Off-Camber Bench

    We got out the axes and shovels again! Eroded trail no more.

    Project 4: Add Rock to Head-Cut

    A little stream coming down the side of the mountain was eroding this section of trail. We gathered rocks to stabalize the ground.

    Project 5: Add Rock to Head-Cut

    Another tippy spot fixed! We will keep a watch on this and all other repaired sections of trail throughout the year.

    Unfortunately we did spend the day on the trail with 3 dirtbikers. We let them know that the trail was closed but they didn’t really care. In fact they even ran 2N06X, and skidded around the river bypass that we blocked the first time out this year. We have a couple of photos of the bikes but they didn’t have plates. The one we didn’t get pics of was an Arizona plate.

    We we got back to the main road we met up with a couple of rangers. They said that they’d heard reports about the dirtbikers but hadn’t been able to catch them. We also came across a man on the Pacific Crest Trail, who said he didn’t pass any closed signs on the way. Funny, we’re guessing that he did since he got himself into a closed area!

    The MJR Trail Crew is officially over halfway done with the "high priority" items on our Trail Maintenance Plan! We do still need to hit the trail with someone who is chainsaw certified. Thank you to the following 13 people: Tom 10, Katheryn 10, Chuck 10, Alycia 10, Aaron 10, Cody 10, Braden 8, Max 8.25, Sarah 8, Rick 8, Julie 8, Kevin 8 and Nick 8 = 116.25