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The Trail CompanionNew Trail Map Available!Our long-awaited Trail Map of the Southern Peninsula has arrived, just in time for summer! This colorful contour map shows trails in two dozen parks of the central Santa Cruz Mountains, including such favorites as Windy Hill, Monte Bello, Skyline Ridge, and Rancho San Antonio Preserves. Our Southern Peninsula Map shows these parks and preserves:
The folded map can be purchased from the Trail Center and the PCC Store, and will soon be available at many local outdoors stores and bookstores. The introductory price is $6.50 including tax. Trail Center volunteers have spent hundreds of hours gathering the information for the map since October 1990. Teams surveyed the trails with measuring wheel and compass, and several individuals plotted the trail using spreadsheets and hand-drafting, then transferred the data to a mock-up on USGS maps. In early 1995 we took the mocked-up map and text to CartoGraphics, the company which produced our Peninsula Parklands Map. Over many months they traced the map into the computer and prepared it for printing - tasks which proved more technically challenging and took more late nights than anyone anticipated. We are pleased to present the fruits of these labors to you, and we can hardly wait to try out the map ourselves. We are grateful to the many volunteers who helped along the way, and to the public agency staff who reviewed the map. A great big thanks to Recreation Equipment Incorporated for their generous grant of $10,000 for volunteer involvement! Sales of this new map will recycle and multiply funds for our volunteer mapping and trail-building programs for years to come. See you on the trail! Thanks to the following Trail Center volunteers for their work on our Southern Peninsula Map:
A Letter to All Trail EnthusiastsEach trail each time is a new place, but trails
have some things in common. They are the lines
connecting the dots of human experience. All history
-- like all politics -- is local, and trails connect
localities. Events linked over space are trails;
events linked over time are stories. There is no
better way to experience the life embodied in those
stories than to take to a trail at the same pace as
that of the actors in those stories -- to walk, or
ride, engaging with the appearance of new landscapes
at a sufficiently deliberate pace so as to permit
that landscape to "register" as a photograph
registers, but, unlike a photograph or a videograph,
in all dimensions and engaging all our senses. Roger Kennedy, Director of USDI
National Park Service President's ColumnHello! I'm Scott Heeschen, the new Trail Center Board of Directors president. When I look back on my earlier days with the Trail Center, it might seem strange, but I was more nervous going to my first trail build than any of the other things I've done with the organization. It was several months before I worked up the courage to actually come out and help build a trail, and only then because a friend and I both agreed to do it together. At the end of the day, I was wondering what had taken me so long. I had a great time doing something worthwhile, learned a lot, and met many great people. I continued coming out, and was encouraged to become a crew leader. After learning much more, and enjoying it all, I finally got my red shirt (which is now pink and black, due to effects of sun and poison oak). That led to joining the Crew Leader Training Committee, and then the Board of Directors, and now, becoming president. I'm glad I got over that initial hurdle. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of giving something back to the trail system, whether working on trails myself, telling others about great hiking and bicycling opportunities, or helping volunteers have a good time on trail builds. Hope to see you out there! Welcome to our new Outreach Coordinator!Our newest staff member is Sandy Nichols who works as the Trail Center outreach coordinator. Sandy works as a part-time landscape contractor when he isn't working at the Trail Center office. He and his wife and two kids moved to the Bay Area from Dallas, Texas, in 1992. The parameters of working as an outreach coordinator appealed to him because not all aspects involved construction. Sandy's interest lies in fundraising and publicity and he recently staffed our Trail Center kiosks at the REI Bike Fair and took part at the Crew Leader Training. If you stop by our office and hear a sweet southern drawl from down the hallway, Sandy is surely right around the corner. Thanks for a Successful California Trail Days 1996!A big thank you to all the volunteers who came out
for our annual California Trail Days event on April
26. Over 40 volunteers joined us at Arguello Park in
San Carlos to build a trail that connects the
community to the park. Also a big thank you to the
City of San Carlos for providing the barbecue and
treats. A New Guide to Reaching the Outdoors by Public Transit -- New From the Trail CenterThe Trail Center has recently released Transit
Outdoors -- a guide to 47 regional parks and
shoreline walks in the Bay Area accessible by public
transit. A fold-up map shows the parks, the transit
connections, illustrative trails, a description of
how to get to each park and what you will find there,
and all the telephone numbers you need to get the
latest park and transit publications. Footloose and Fancy FreeIf you are looking for terrific guided hikes in the Bay Area and would like to have a learning experience that is lots of fun, contact Michael J. Ellis to get his current brochure for natural history hikes and tours. You can call him at 707 829-1844; contact him at mjnature@aol.com; or write to Footloose Forays, P.O. Box 175, Sebastopol, CA, 95473-0175. Wish ListAn up-to-date version of FileMaker Pro Saturday Night at the Movies... June 15, 1996Come see the fabulous slide show of Trail Center photographer, Matt Noall. Bring a potluck dish to share and come hear the stories behind the pictures. For directions to Matt's Cupertino location and showtime, please reply to the Trail Center at (650) 968-7065 by June 12. So You Don't Like Trail Work?Then perhaps you'd like to learn mapping skills.
Or offer help in the office. Or join the publicity
committee. Or help with fundraising. Or even join the
Board of Directors. There are lots of ways you can
help the Trail Center without getting your hands
dirty. The Trail Center depends on volunteers. Call
415-968-7065 to become part of the action...with no
sweat. Do You Have Carpentry Skills?We are looking for volunteers with carpentry skills to help construct a wooden walkway in Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve on June 22. If you would like to help on an exciting project, please call the Trail Center office. Volunteer of the Month: Richard W. Allsop When Rich Allsop was
first drafted as a crew leader, he had only been on a
few trail builds with the Trail Center. "I muddled
through the day somehow," he says, "and I guess I did
a good enough job to be asked again." It was 1987,
and Rich was already an experienced hiker and solo
backpacker when he joined the Trail Center. Over the
next two years he led trail crews occasionally but
didn't really feel sure of his technical skills.
"Then I went through a technical training session,
which really boosted my confidence," he says. "I also
learned a lot from the other crew leaders and work
day supervisors I met." When the formal crew leader
training program was started in 1990 (see sidebar),
Rich was asked to be a trainer. During the next five
years, he showed many trainees the ropes. He also
helped out during the annual training weekends and
started attending Crew Leader Training Committee
meetings. --Anne Bers The Crew Leader
Training Program was created in 1990 to provide a
formal course of instruction for aspiring crew
leaders at the Trail Center. The program has three
parts which can be taken in any sequence: the annual
Crew Leader Training Weekend, first aid instruction,
and apprenticeship. The training weekend involves
lectures and field sessions which cover basic
technical, safety, and leadership skills. This year's
training was held recently at Hidden Valley in Los
Altos Hills. Trainees must also get Standard First
Aid certification. Classes are offered throughout the
year by the Red Cross and the Sierra Club. The
apprenticeship part of the program requires trainees
to work closely with trainers at trail builds.
Trainers are more experienced crew leaders who have
been chosen to teach trainees. A trainee works at his
or her own pace through a checklist of technical and
leadership tasks that gradually increase in
responsibility. As trainees demonstrate each skill,
trainers give feedback on what they did well and
where they may need to improve. The apprenticeship
ends with a final exam in which the trainee leads a
work crew from start to finish, with the trainer
observing. Trail Center Profile: Beneficial Design's Peter Axelson, Part OneI met Peter Axelson at the California Trails Conference held in Asilomar in March after I tried one of his sample wheelchairs, a model called the Cobra. I went down a slope and when I arrived at the bottom of the hill, I struggled to maneuver the wheelchair upwards. My efforts proved futile after much huffing and straining and I sat immobile thinking of how I should walk the wheelchair back to where I started. An observant and elderly woman ran to my aid and pushed me uphill to where I found Peter smiling, watching, and sitting in his wheelchair. What I was doing with the wheelchair was simple enough, I thought, on a pavement with a slope of no more than a five percent grade, but the sheer effort of working against gravity was difficult. Peter, however, takes on natural terrain trails using the same modified wheelchair, which has a lower center of mass than a standard wheelchair, extended foot retainers and a braking system similar to a bicycle. After miraculously surviving a 180-foot fall in a rock climbing accident that left him paralyzed, Peter continued his studies in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and founded Beneficial Designs in 1981. Through research, design and education, the company seeks to enhance the quality of life for people of all abilities. Beneficial Designs' motto is that all individuals should have access to the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of life. One aspect of that work involves a project to train individuals to assess trails for universal use. The goal of the trail project is to provide standardized, objective Universal Access Information about individual recreation trails since the majority of existing trail information is subjective. That is, a trail that is moderately difficult for some can be more difficult for others depending on their ability and the mobility device used. To provide objective information about trails, it is necessary to collect detailed measurements of specific trail characteristics. In collaboration with the National Park Service, Beneficial Designs isolated the following characteristics for Universal Access Information: grade, cross slope, trail width, surface type, and the size and type of obstacles. Such information would be posted at the park trailheads for trail users to make their own decisions based on their individual abilities; the same information would be available on audio tapes. The concept of providing specifics of trail characteristics in a standardized form is similar to the nutritional labels on food packages documenting the specifics of a product's nutritional value. Extensive data has been collected on several trails in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The work of training individuals and agencies on assessing universal trail information continues as Peter and his staff travel the continental United States, Asia and Europe. Beneficial Designs is based in Santa Cruz, California. The company also designs and tests equipment for mobility-impaired people such as modified snow skiing equipment, wheelchairs, airplane seats, hand tensile exercising tools, etc. When he's not working on Beneficial Designs projects, Peter travels to his Montana home where he works as a ski instructor. Never allowing any physical limitations to hinder his goals, Peter participated in the 1992 Olympics in the skiing division. Versatile and graced with athletic prowess, he also dances, plays ping-pong, flies airplanes, and, of course, hikes. One of his more memorable hikes was in the Austrian slopes. Peter and a friend managed to reach a considerable height up in the Alps, but they were overtaken by the steepness of the mountain. The particular trail did not have Universal Access Information and he said "a rescue team had to pull me up on ropes!" Next Issue: Part Two, Universal Trail Assessment --Judie Corrales Trail Center EventsTrail building is a great way to give back to your community and nature while doing something for yourself. Tools, gloves, training and supervision provided! Just bring sturdy shoes, long sleeves and pants, sunscreen, water, lunch, and gloves if you have them. Call today for more information such as directions, time and reserve a space on one or all of the following trail builds!
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