The Soldier Creek Restoration Project -- Suspended

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED due to a lack of volunteers who could commit to the project within the time frame proposed. It is likely that the project will not take place and that the trail will be restored slowly as time permits.

The following was the proposed plan which is now obsolete.

A volunteer effort is needed to tear down hung up trees and tree limbs hanging over sections of Soldier Creek Trail in an area which was burned during the Curve Fire.

Preliminary scheuleing looks like the effort would be for August 22, 23, and 24. The following could be some indication about how the volunteer days would go. One or two work days would be needed with time off and a week end would be used to make a two-night sleep over.

Thursday August 21:
Anyone flying in for the effort would need to arive some time Tursday September 4 since the team would collect fairly early the next morning.

Friday August 22:
Meet at the Rincon Fire Station around 9:00 a.m. to assemble the tools and equipment, food and camping equipment that would be needed for the effort, then drive up in to the Crystal Lake Recreation Area.

Around 10:00 a.m. we would carry the equipment to be used for the day to the area we would be working, then we would work on pulling down hung-up trees and limbs using ropes, grip hoist, and other safety equipment, then the downed trees need to be bucked up and removed from the trail.

We would have lunch some time, and then resume work until 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m., then have the rest of the day and the night to ourserves, either to wash up in the creek, go for hikes, read books, or do whatever people want to do.

Saturday August 23:
Some time around 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. we would resume work on the hung up trees if there is still work to do there. Whenever that effort is finished, we could hike the rest of the trail removing downed trees and also felling burned trees that are leaning over the trail and are likely to fall.

Lunch would be taken whenever we want to, and the work would continue until around 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. with the rest of the evening and the night to do whatever we want to.

If all trees have been cleared and all potential falling trees have been removed, there is encroaching brush along the trail that could be removed which will likely constitute a considerable amount of effort.

Sunday August 24:
Sunday would be a half day, starting around 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. and taking a look at whatever remaining higher priority things we might do for about 4 hours or so.

When we reach a good stopping point, we would have lunch and then reassemble the tools, check the trail for any last minute hazards that need to be removed, and then we would return to the Rincon fire station to return the tools.

A last opportunity to wash either in the creek or using the electric water pump and hose that's available (cold water only!) would be had before we head down to Rincon.

People needing to get to the airports could expect to get to the airport starting around 2:00 p.m. or perhaps as late at 3:00 p.m.

Here are photographs of the start of the work effort. I came to a large blockage on the trail and could not go past without a better rope than the one I usually carry, but we can expect that there are more downed trees along the trail which I did not get to.

If something is too difficult or we consider it to be too dangerous to work on, we will not do it. We will leave it to the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders and their larger group of professional trailbuilder volunteers to handle.

This is the trailhead parking area for Soldier Creek and Pinyon Ridge. The work effort will probably park our vehicles here and stage our tools and equipment from this parking area.

There is water here within about 100 feet, coming from an underground cistern which has an electric pump to bring the water up. The water is underground so it is clean and does not have to be filtered or treated in any way. Since it is under ground, there is also none of the taste of ash that so many of the other creeks some times have due to the Curve Fire of 2002.

The trailhead serves two different trails. Soldier Creek loops around and meets up with Cedar Trail and it is possible that over the course of this effort we will be able to remove all downed trees along the entire length of the trail with probably the first day being committed to the very large snag that's hung up and then the down trees that are blocking the rest of the trail.

We need not complete the clearing of the entire trail if we find that we are too tired or do not have the time.

Since we will be near the creek, we will have water for washing and for whatever else we want -- like cooling off. The lower section of Soldier Creek has water running all year around and parts of the creek are deep enough to walk in to and scrub clean with.

Many dead trees have branches that lay over the trail however we will only remove those that are either blocking the trail, are low enough that people will walk in to them, or look like they will fall down and block the trail some time soon.

Here is the first major snag. You can see there is a large trunk being held up by dead branches, all of which will eventually drop on to the trail -- or possibly on to hikers if it were left like that.

This snag will be the most difficult part of the effort since a lot of danger is being suspended. We can pull a lot of it down using ropes, chains, and the griphoist however chainsays will need to be used to bring everything down then to buck it all up so that swampers can shove it all over the side and off of the trail.

Some of the dead trees are providing shade and will not constitute a safety hazard to hikers -- at least for a couple of years. I think we should leave as much of the dead trees in place to provide shade and to hold the soil for the coming rains as possible.

Trees block the trail from time to time and there are overhangs which need to be brought down first before we start working on downed trees that are under them.

Safety will be the number 1 priority during this project so we will constantly be evaluating every move we make, planning every move, and trying to do things in the safest sequence as possible.

This photograph shows a downed tree limb across the trail which is overhung with numerous other tree limbs, any of which could fall down at any time.

We will fell any tree which constitutes a hazard and then we will work on removing what's down across the trail after the overhead has been made safe.

There are some tree limbs which someone else trimmed back which are still encroaching upon the trail. We will probably want to cut those back to the proper distance if we have time.

Many tree limbs droop down upon the trail and we will need to climb up the side of the hill, establish safe working positions and avenues of escape where chainsaws may be applied to fell the trunks from which these limbs are hanging, then once the trees are down we can buck up what's across the trail using chainsaws and snippers.

It looks like most of the work will be done by the swampers, the people who will drag off the cut and broken branches and twigs.

After trees are removed from the trail there will be additional cleanup of the trail to remove all the twigs, leaves, and what not that is usually left behind by such efforts. We will apply McLouds and other tools on the trail to scrape up the mess and shove it over the side of the trail.

A large set of downed trees and limbs which makes the rest of the trail difficult to get to appears fairly soon after the large snag. We will need to tackle this slowly, working on the downslope side of the whole mass, cutting and removing limbs and working our way up slope so that we have a safe, relatively clear working area to attack the main trunks in this mess.

The limbs will be removed one by one and hauled away, being taken in an order that looks the safest.

This is kind of difficult to see however there is a broken tree trunk upslope of the trail which will eventually come rollig down and will probably come to rest on the trail -- or on a hiker. Two cuts should release this particular tree enough so that it can be bucked up and removed entirely.

There are a number of trees upslope which will eventually come down to rest on the trail and we will look at each one and decide among ourselves whether to remove them or not.