Author: Karl Mosgofian

We had a good workday and completed most but not all of our plan (although we also had some late additions to the plan, and discovered a new drainage issue because of rains the previous week). We had a lower than normal turnout which impacted our capacity but still achieved a lot. We had 14 volunteers, 3 Park employees, and 3 Trail Center crew leaders. We broke into 3 sections (there is a bonus area we were not able to address but should be on the list for next time). There were some errors in the workday plan, some flags didn’t have a description but we were able to address those issues. We were lucky that it had rained all week off an on, but there was no rain for our workday and the soil was not as muddy as might have been expected (a lot of rocks).

Skyline Trail from Seagrave to Junction 10
This is mostly complete, Helen’s crew did a terrific job. However there was an area that needs more attention than we had realized, SCCP may do it on their own but if not it’s a candidate to work on next time. This was in the area near flag 13, we knew the berm should be knocked down to better feed the existing drain but after rains earlier in the week we could see how much water is running down the middle of the trail. Assessment of the team was an inside drain is needed, for quite a ways up from the drain. There may also be some light drain cleaning and inside edge work to be done but the regular volunteer crews may be able to do that.

Skyline Trail from Biddles to Junction 10 + Install Bench
This small team did a beautiful job of installing a new bench near the top of the trail, and then working the trail down to the junction (including adding new drainage). The handmade bench was made by a volunteer with recovered redwood and looks fantastic!

Sanborn Trail from Junction 10
This section needed a lot of work, including several large projects. Jennifer’s crew worked the upper section and achieved a lot of improvements; in the morning constructing three new, large drains. In the afternoon they did multiple small drains and restored an area in which erosion and roots had caused hikers to reroute. They rebuilt the original path and made the use path ugly and uninviting. A couple of the crew members really enjoyed "rewilding" the trail by preserving all the original duff and branches and then delicately spread them back over our dirt moving.

Another crew led by Judd tackled a late addition to the plan which ended up taking most of the day to install a stair using local materials. This came out really well, although once in place we realized there needs to be at least one more stair. Key items remaining for next time are flags 8 and 9 where small creeks flow across the trail.

Here is a link to notes for our follow up workday (they talked about Summer of 2025 timeframe)

Karl Mosgofian