Logs, Blogs, and Volunteer Work Parties. 6/5 - 6/30
I admittedly missed last weeks conditions blog, but only because I was busy working with folks to get things opened up. We had a good crew show up and do work on the heavily loved trails up highway 20. As always, MVTC is extremely grateful to the folks willing to spend their free time to help keep trails opened and our public lands accessible. We consider ourselves quite lucky to consistently get hardworking, easy to work with, and skilled volunteers. Our crew is also currently hard at work, with 2 of our folks building on some work done by the BCH in late May. The hope being to get Andrews creek logged out to the Spanish Camp cabin. All that said, here’s all the things that MVTC has been up to.
Heather/Maple Pass: The trail was logged out up past 6,000ft and the snow is quickly receding. Volunteers took on cleaning up a previous tread project, adding drains, a retaining log, and a stone cap as well as constructing another log retaining wall. Both came out excellent.
Lake Ann: Logged free to the lake. The trail past the junction, heading to the lake specifically, is a little brushy in spots, and very soggy within the last quarter of a mile to the lake. The biggest Marmot I’ve ever seen lives at the lake, it’s approaching the size to demand an answer to riddles for entry to the lake.
Easy Pass: It’s log free from the trailhead to the pass. There was an avalanche or something of the sort over the winter, and now a few hundred feet of the trail (at around 4900ft) are covered in pretty solid clementine sized rocks and dirt. There are cairns that mark the original tread layout if you look hard enough, but it’s easy to navigate to just head straight up. If you can wait until August, I know for a fact the huckleberries that grow on the switchbacks just before the pass are amazing
Cutthroat Lake/ Cutthroat Pass: Myself and a few eager volunteers had cut logs that were just poking in the corridor and one larger tree to get to the lake. We had hiked halfway up to the pass when we realized someone else had beat us to the punch….
Blue Lake: The trail is logged out to the lake and only very small patches of snow persist. A few of the boards on the boardwalk through the lower sections are coming loose, so be wary. The bugs at the lake are ravenous right now, but not so insufferable as to prevent having lunch at the lake.
Robinson Creek: This is more of an update on that big log I talked about in the last post. A volunteer, myself, and our mutual friend High-Lift Jack were able to do some very careful and intentional maneuvers to get the log off the trail. We even had time to finish the cutting up to the Beauty Creek Bridge.
Scatter Creek: MVTC has been able to hire another seasonal crew member- with another one o the way in July- and as part of their initiation, we went out for an overnight trip to the lake. With more trees down since we were last out, we had to cut out to the boundary again. We spent the next day clearing trees and brush from lake heading back to the trailhead, making to 0.25- 0.5 a mile from the wilderness boundary. While we had cut out 23 trees and cleared 300 feet of brush, another 28 logs remain in that final stretch; where the brush is also pretty wretched.
Monument Creek: This trail- past the foot log- is long, steep, really hot, and as of now, dry all the way to the lake. Now I’m looking to brag, but our crew really did do a great job. The logistic challenges aside, they managed cut over 300 logs, brushed out over 1200 feet, and reestablished 200 feet of tread spanning from the camp above the switchbacks at 4800 all the way over to Lake of The Woods. When combined with the efforts from some hardy volunteers to the lower sections of the switchbacks, the trail is log free, and much easier to navigate; it’s something that hasn’t been done in 30(ish?) years.