Trail Work at Canada Bonita

From Clay, our club prez (see note from Lynn B at bottom regarding keeping track of your volunteer hours):

It's that time of year again to get some trail maintenance work done up at Canada Bonita (FS Trail #282 & SWNSC ski trails).  The aspens and locusts are finally not rooting in so much, so it's time to cut them all out.  Also, we have some good news from the Forest Service:  we'll be able to repair a few spots where the fire actually physically burned the trail away where there was a lot of organic material.

The aspens and locusts would best be dealt with using those big "grub" hoes, Pulaskis, and McCleod tools to cut out their roots, but we may not have enough time this season.  We will have to do our best to clear much more of the trail system due to their growth than ever before.  So, a combination of "chopping" them out, in addition to "whacking" them out (which will just see them grow back next year) will have to do.  They have proliferated on the entire trail system this year, no doubt stimulated by the fire.  If you ever want to go do some work on your own, just hike up and start chopping or whacking away; just be sure to get them cut down low so that they don't poke out above the groomed snow line.  Also try to toss them off to the side of the trail, as hikers and bikers will still be using the trail until ski season.

The trail repair areas will require placing our low-side log structures (from dead/down material), then cutting a small section of the high-side portion of the trail to fill in the gaps on the low side.  We also have some drainage bars to create with some grading cleanups.  We'll try to borrow and rent some machinery with low-impact tread.  Hopefully we can find a mini-excavator, and it looks like Sam Gardner will be helping us with his backhoe.

I'm trying to schedule what weekends this work can be done.  It looks like perhaps next weekend (Oct. [12],13-14) will be one of the weekends, and perhaps the weekend of Oct. 27-28.  We may have another couple of chances in November as well.

At any rate, there is a lot that can be done individually with the cutting of all that brush.  I will try to be up there this weekend to do some work and staking for the "excavation."  I'll post the time as soon as I know.  This year will be interesting since we just had a new baby.

Also in the works is a trail day with REI volunteers, and perhaps even some National Guard members helping out.  We'll see on those things.  We could even plan on a group camp out to get even more work done over a weekend.

More to come.  Please try to get up and help when/if you can.

Important note from Lynn regarding keeping track of your volunteer hours:
Please be sure to track and record all your hours of work on the Nordic Ski
Trails.  To do that just send Clay and/or me an email (or email SWNSKIboard@gmail.com) with:
Date of work
Location and what you did
Number of hours

We just completed Phase I of the contract that is part of the SWNS Club Cost
Share Agreement.  This contract so far has paid Reineke Trail Construction Crew
to restore the upper half of Guaje Ridge Trail, North Mitchell Trail, and Guaje
Canyon Trail.  The first bill was for $20,000.  Under the agreement, we have to
match that $20,000 with $10,000 worth of volunteer labor.  That came out to
about 460 hours.  We have $73,000 left in the contract, and to spend it on trail
rehab, we must match it with about 1600 hours of volunteer work.  So you can see
that tracking every hour of volunteer work we do is essential.  It is your work
that is enabling the restoration of all of our trail system. If we were ever  to
get audited for responsible use of Federal funds, someone would take the emails,
or trail sign-in sheets, and call you up to verify that you did that work. They
do that more and more with fire rehab money to assure correct spending.

Thanks so much for your assistance with this!

Lynn