The Trail Companion

I forwarded an announcement about a Tahoe Rim Trail Crew Leader training workshop in mid-June to former TC Crew Leader Trainee David Crosby. He immediately wrote back, saying, "Damn you! Now I'm booked for this weekend for trail bashing!!"
      I got back a report the following Monday. He reported that "they have LOTS of volunteers, seemingly a big problem managing them; for example: 40 scouts, 50 from this, and so on. As usual at the meeting, most middle aged, middle class men; of 30+ there, only five women and one African American. Most were representing groups, so perhaps that is why no real training given.
      "Hard hats are mandatory, as officially Forest Service employees during the work. Volunteers can get workman's comp if they fall down, break legs, etc. Long sleeves/pants also mandatory.
      "Tahoe Trails allow mountain bikes, a talk given showed little damage to the trail, only a couple of switchbacks. Problems are downed trees, and the basic message was that the danger to the trail was water, water, water. Still snow on high parts.
      "No training on tools at all on Sat. Trail is to be 24 in wide, only four ft clearance, 10 ft high for horses. See the Tahoe Rim Trail Guide to construction.
      "Three full time paid types, the biggest time spent with government types making sure they don't go near archeological sites, wild flowers, etc. Some approvals take several years to get. Forest Service type finally does the flagging. Rock drills used to break up rocks -- power tools are allowed in much of the area.
      "No mountain bikers on the PCT or wilderness areas. They have been brought in to work, so perhaps they'll learn not to ruin the trail.
      "I learned about saws. Other than that, no mention of ticks, hantavirus, French drains. Rock walls are a specialty; mainly forest service types do the heavy lifting, many hundred-pound rocks used.
      "Sara, the TRCA volunteer coordinator, gave a talk on leadership. Data handouts, really.
      "I think I'll try to work on PCT, I think they need help more."
      Although the workshop continued on Sunday, David decided they had enough people and returned home to Quincy to go out and hike or work on the Pacific Crest Trail, which passes near his house.

      Castle Rock Trail reroute volunteer Harley Adams recently departed for Durham, North Carolina to pursue an MBA at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. I asked him for details and he wrote, "For the next couple of months I'll be studying up on calculus and other fun stuff in between great hikes throughout the Rockies (zig-zag journey back to the old man's place in Montana, with stops in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado). Before I left, I was proud to take my mom on a tour of the Castle Rock trail while she was out visiting. I really enjoyed the backbreaking work this past year, as well as the extremely pleasant fellow trail-builders."

      Former TC President Bern Smith was appointed to the San Mateo County Parks and Recreation Commission, giving the San Mateo coastside its first representative in more than a decade. Since leaving the Trail Center a few years ago to pursue a new career as a park ranger with the City of San Jose, Bern has live in El Granada and is also proprietor for Landsmiths, a land management consulting firm that is providing interim management for the Coast Dairies Project for the Trust for Public Land. The 7,000-acre property south of Davenport, which includes seven miles of undeveloped coastline, hundreds of acres of grasslands and forest, and nearly 800 acres of cultivated land, will eventually be transferred to public ownership. Bern also founded Midcoast Park Lands, which purchased and manages Quarry Park in El Granada.

      Finally, I got in touch with former Trail Center Executive Director David Sutton, who left the TC many years ago for an MBA in non-profit management. After a stint in New Mexico, David returned to the Bay Area and has been with the Trust for Public Land's San Francisco office for most of the past decade. He is currently directing TPL's Sierra Nevada Program, focusing on the Tahoe Basin and northern Sierra, including the Sierra foothills. One of his areas of concern is preservation and management of the blue-oak woodlands in the foothills, particularly in areas such the Grass Valley/Nevada City region of Nevada County, where nearly all such woodland is under private ownership and facing development pressures. He is also addressing the checkerboard of public and private ownership within the Tahoe National Forest.

      Along the Trail focuses on our members' and volunteers' activities both inside and outside the Trail Center (is there really a life beyond the TC??). If you have interesting tales to tell, have created a website that may be of interest to our membership, or basic gossip that you'd like to share, we'd like to hear about it.

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