| We arrived in Downieville late Friday night,
expecting to spend the next day working on the Downieville end of the
North Yuba trail, only to find on Saturday that we'd be cutting a by-pass
trail on Butcher Ranch instead.
Of course, in my ignorance, I don't know the names of 99% of the
people who took part in the "cut your own trail" day. I know my
name, and I know Patrick's (my husband) name. And I know Wayne and Greg
from Yuba Expeditions...
Oh, and I know Solly the dog's name. But she didn't get to go on the trip.
Anyway, please feel free to drop me a note to fill in the names of
any participants you spot. In fact, it doesn't matter even if you don't
know their names either - feel free to drop me a note and give me some
fictitious names.
The trail day was excellent fun - we got to ride our bikes, cut
trail, ride our bikes some more, and then retire to the pizza place
in Downieville and eat pizza and quaff beer put on by
"Management".
Oh, and we got to stay at the most excellent Carriage
House Inn, where bike friendly innkeepers Liz and John Luster gave
us a great room at short notice (again). A few weeks earlier they had
hosted the wedding of two of the trail-workers on their patch of green
overlooking the river...
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After gathering at the Forestry Station in
Downieville in the morning, Wayne drove us up to
Packer Saddle in the
shuttle van (and we didn't even get sick, although we did have to make a
bathroom break just past Sierra City). |
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The forestry people and other helpers managed to drive some
of the tools down the first part of Butcher Ranch trail until just
before the first chasm where they had to stop.
The creek was up high enough to get soggy feet if you weren't careful.
I got soggy feet. |
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We rode down Butcher Ranch until we got to the bottom
of the steepest, most eroded section and came across Greg Williams on his
dirt bike, with McCloud tools sticking out the top of his backpack. This
section of trail was what the new by-pass trail was going to
by-pass. |
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We dumped the bikes at the bottom and trudged back up to the top again to start
work.
This is me trudging. |
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The object of the exercise was to rake out the dirt from the
high side of the trail, and cut it down to make a shelf. |
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The forestry people had been there earlier to decide where
the trail was going to go and mark it out with ribbons and stakes. |
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They supplied the tools and we supplied the gloves and
blisters. |
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Practising your golf swing. This guy got the award for most
amount of effort put into removing stumps and large rocks. |
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When he grows up, he's going to be a woodcutter. |
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(Center) Greg Williams himself... |
This guy in the blue t-shirt was recovering from a shoulder injury, so couldn't
do any mountain biking. To save himself he'd taken up trail running instead. He
rode up to Packer Saddle with us, ran down to do the trail work, and then
continued to run down into Downieville (~15 miles). He said it was tougher than
a marathon he'd run. But he also said he was trying to stay ahead of his bike
buddies, so that might have had sommat to do with it... |
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In this last photo, you can see us hacking away at the trail
while Ranger Bob tries to stop us doing more harm than good. You can see
him in the background pointing and telling us to stop mucking about, clear
up that mess, and get on with real work.
(OK, so that might not be exactly what he's saying.) |
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Chop, chop, chop...
Rake, rake, rake...
Rumour has it that we cut 3000 yards of trail that day. Good job,
people! |
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This is the scariest part of the trail, where trees and a
large boulder meant that it is very narrow and you have to breathe in when
you go through. |
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Me looking pathetically like I'm raking a flower garden. I
worked, honest I did. Still have the blister scars to show for it... |
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And the reward - getting to ride the trail the following
day. Once it beds in properly, it's going to be a pretty nice trail. |
