Trees and Trails and Thoughts
On Saturday 01/15 I had to Coe it alone, I had time to stop and remove some trees in the way. I brought a small sliding Fiskar saw, one of my last. here it is being employed on the Milias Trail on Saturday.
That saw is too small for my tastes now. On top of that, the blade is bent. I sort of straighten it out, but when it heats up, it seems to revert back to the bent state. I'm not going to get another one of these. I'm moving up to a 14" saw from now on. The Sven saw is not my favorite either.
On Willow Ridge Trail there was a pine tree top that had impaled itself into the ground like a dart, an upside down christmas tree.
It was tough to pull it out. then up higher there was a fallen tree trunk, which was easy to roll off.
To tell the truth, it was nice to have an excuse to get off the bike at that point.
But it got me to thinking about the modes of travel, about what the rider's purpose is, when mountain biking. Most people do not carry saws. A lot of people are interested in making time, or getting somewhere, and I'm like that a lot too. But maybe they are missing something when they see fallen trees as merely inconveniences. There's a story for every fallen tree, and it is fascinating to speculate on the circumstances that led to the fall, and what else happened.
Hoover Lake was full, but not overflowing at the spillway when I got there.
The trail now actually exists, although the section between the pines just west of the dam still looks like no trail is there. But you just can't get lost now.
The trail immediately off of Willow Ridge Road is bumpy at first, but it is actually really fun, and the reversals, on this downhill direction are pumpable. Very cool. The Pliny shrine is all gone.
Now we get to enjoy this excellent route to the lake and stay high and dry out of the mud and water.
It is good to see this pond so full this early in the year. I'm glad we trimmed this pine too.
The switchbacks have been packed down by the rain and were already quite firm.
Hopefully some herbs will take up residence around here. It is a good place for poppies. But it is a parched and hot place in the summer.
On the Milias trail I checked out the go-around and log-over I made this summer when a huge oak fell across the trail just at the bottom of the final steep half-pipe section.
Then just below that there are two trenches dug by the former resource ecologist (he has since quit the DPR) which were cut with complete disregard for trail users, like bike riders. Last summer I modified the shape to permit riding this section. [I do have pics somewhere of the way this looked before, and I ought to post them here at some point.]
It was good. The RE was right though. There is a flash gully here which must drain a wide area of mountain top, and evidence of a large aount of water drainage from the recent rains showed that the drains were working.
There was a new pine tree across the trail not too far down from there (sawn through in first photo). And it was removed.
On Cross Canyon Trail there is a huge fallen live oak across the road bed.
I trimmed out a way to stoop underneath and roll your bike through.
On Sunday I saw volunteer Tom Conrad on the Grizzly Gulch Trail and he reported that the tree on Grizzly just above the gully crossing below the Cullen Trail had been removed. Did one of the CMBP do it? I didn't.
Edit:
Diesel was in the park today and took a photo of the tree cut on Grizzly Gulch just mentioned. Diesel sent this photo:
That looks pretty nasty for a mountain bike. I hope to head up there on Weds and finish it off. I have to admit it was pretty lame of me to not go up there and hack at that limb on Sunday. I was so close. Yet, I had decided I needed to focus on one thing only. I want to test the culvert section on a bike too.
See this entry for the remediation:
http://henry-w-coe-bike-patrol.blogspot.com/2011_01_21_archive.html
(end edit)
Well, the trees never stop falling out there. it is truly the gift that just keeps giving as Plymmer is fond of saying.
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