Adopt-A-Trail Reports

3N93 trail maintenance work day August 02, 2008

    by | June 20th, 2019

    Russ = 16 hours
    Kurt (rat patrol) – trail leader 15
    Erik (Nailer341) 18
    Mat (materdaddy) with a guest, Scott 15×2
    Max (Max7) 14.5
    Scott (dr. dirty) with his daughter, Chloe 15×2
    Scott with Kevin’s (1BadFNZ) trailer 15

    Total= 138.5 hours

    MJR AAT group had another great turn out to work on 3N93 (Holcomb Creek) on Saturday, Aug. 02, 2008. We met up at the Ranger Station on Hwy. 18. We got to the trail head around 9 AM. The first thing we did was inspect the illegal motorcycle trail that had been blazed some time ago to get around the water crossing at the East entrance to the trail. The barriers we placed there in previous trips were in place but are inadequate to stop determined bikers. We found fresh motorcycle tracks in the mud there. We’ll have to come up with another idea.

    We then moved on to the other side of the water and tried to come up with ideas for the entrance to the trail. There are three ways into the trail form the Southwest side of the water, and we need to block off two of them, then make the remaining one an obstacle strong enough to keep Jeeps with less than 33s and lockers from easily making it through. There are some great ideas being tossed around, and a consensus was generally reached between those that were there. The original entrance trail has been there for a very long time and should be modified and made the only way in. There is a trail off to the left which will have to be blocked. There are plenty of dead trees that need to come down close to the trail that can be utilized as rail fences to block both the left and right sides of the entrance. We can add large boulders as needed to support and strengthen the rails. We will probably have to block all the way down to the water to prevent bypasses being created around the railings. There are a lot of really nice boulders that can be rolled down the hill above the trail head and placed in the center trail to create a gate keeper. Other rocks can be trucked in to fill if needed. We figure if the gate keeper starts about 50-70 feet from the water and continues up around the first bend in the trail, and up to the top of the notch there, that should be sufficient. During trail runs to come, others should take a look at the area and add their comments/ideas so we can get a final idea. This is going to be a big job!

    We moved on to haul rocks to the head cuts at mile 3.9, 4.2 and another at about 5.3 miles. We estimate that the trailer Scott brought up holds around 2500 lbs. of rock. We filled and emptied it 4-5 times during the day, so 10,000 lbs. of rock was thrown around today. No wonder the margaritas and Mexican food tasted extra good that evening!

    During the entire run I was marking trees that need to be downed. A sad job, but now that we actually started looking at them, there area a lot that will need to addressed, especially at the East rock garden. There are three very close to the trail that may come down in the next big wind. I ran out of paint because there are so many, but mainly because I found out that the charcoal bark absorbs spray paint like a sponge. Maybe a different marking method can be used (ribbon)? I marked a total of 11 trees, but I think there at least 50 or more than are potential problems. I’m no expert though. Greg will need to look at what we marked.

    After we finished the rock hauling and trash pickup, we headed to the West end to check the fence and play a little on the rocks. The West end of the trail is in pretty good shape, with the exception being the two shelf roads that are filling up with slough from the cliff side and getting a little narrow and off camber. We will need some mechanical help here (bobcat) or something similar.

    We headed back out and got of the trail around 7:30 PM. It was a hot, long, rock hauling day, but we got more accomplished and got a little closer to the goal.

    New issues:

    There are a lot of low hanging branches that need to be cut by the next crew that goes up. Some are 1 inch in diameter and can do some damage if you’re not careful.

    The illegal trail at 5.5 miles in (from the East) needs to be closed. Looks like it was used again recently. GPS 34.16.531 117.01.942

    Entrance to trail (Left side)

    Center

    Bear and Racoon tracks in the mud at the entrance

    Chloe had a rough start to the day, but she picked herself up and even helped carry and place rocks.

    The green is returning

    one of many loads of rocks

    The rest of the pics are here:https://s64.photobucket.com/albums/h192/ratpatrolmjr/holcomb%20work%20day%201