Trail Maintenance: Report from the PCT - Part I

Tamping dirt on rock water bar

Damn it's hot up here in Northern California.  For the last six days, I have worked with volunteers from the Northwest Service Academy's PCT II crew to clear three miles of trail from Peavine Creek to Red Mountain in the infamous Section O, and let me tell you, IT IS HOT! Every day temperatures surge into the mid 90's, and from what I've seen in the weather reports, it is supposed to get warmer.  Ugh.

Nonetheless, I am having a great time doing the much needed work on the trail.  I get to work with seven twenty-somethings, who are all keeping me on my toes, but I am keeping up with them.  I get to live in my tent at Headwaters Camp in McArthur-Burney Falls State Park.  I get to work and sweat every day.  I get to do a lot of reading - something I don't do enough of back in San Francisco! Finally, I get to experience the whole trail crew culture, which has intrigued me ever since I ran into trail crews back on the Appalachian Trail.

Northwest Service Academy PCT II and Freefall

The first two days of our hitch (that's what trail maintainers call their trail maintaining sessions) I helped install a rock water bar, which helps divert water off the trail and prevent erosion, and I assisted with doing some rock work to help repair/rebuild tread.  Kate and Vyper, the two leaders on this trail crew, told me that the first mile following Peavine Creek needs this tread work, because the tread had eroded into a U-shape.  They told me that the main culprit of this erosion are cattle, which freely graze in the mountains.

I did brushwork on the last four days of the hitch.  I ran a Stihl four stroke brush cutter, which has this awesome three-pronged blade on it, for two days, and on the other two days, I lopped and swamped. Swamping means that I picked up brush that was cut by the cutter, gathered it into stacks, and dumped it as far off the trail as I could.  If I wasn't swamping or lopping branches, then I was removing staubs, which are the those small stumps from bushes that are left over after clearing with a brush cutter. Many of the staubs are from vine maples, which seem to grow crazily on the PCT in Northern California.  The work is tedious, time consuming, and when done during the heat of the day, kind of gnarly.

Morning view of Mount Shasta from the Hat Creek Rim

I am currently staying at the home of Georgi (Firefly) and Dennis (Fire Walker) Heitman in the Hat Creek Resort area near Old Station.  I have never been here before, and now I can understand why hikers really enjoy coming here to the Heitman's.  There's a lot of room to spread out here, and Firefly does a great job of making hiker's feel welcomed.  Her hospitality has been much appreciated, especially after hiking 46-miles from Burney Falls and over the blistering hot Hat Creek Rim to get here.  I got to see Weather Carrot and Squatch while I've been here, and tonight I get to visit with Brenda Murray from the PCTA, and I looking forward to telling her about my latest adventure here.

I have two more hitches out here, each of which will be four days long.  After the next hitch, I plan to hike all of Section O to Dunsmuir, and then hitch (another use of the word!) a ride back for the final hitch (original use for the word).  After that, I will come back here to the Heitman's on the 27th, and from here I will hike to Belden to complete my hike of Section N. What a way to spend a July!  I only hope I don't melt by the time I finish my work and hiking.  Let's hope for cooler weather.