Photographs are offered in the links at the bottom of this page.

Today the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders continued working on the North Fork access trail from the main highway down to the San Gabriel River below.

The new access trail is located at:

North 34 degrees 14.982 by West 117 degrees, 51.773 at 1754 feet.

Today's trail building effort started out with low clouds and some fog, conditions that are perfect for doing trail work since the cool temperatures help keep things from getting hot, sweaty, and exhaustive. This was not a regularly scheduled work day for the San Gabriel Mountain Trailbuilders but a lot of volunteers showed up and a lot of work got done.

The night previously I had sewed up a large tear in my ancient yellow backpack, tossed some food, clothes, Larry Nivens's "Ringworld" and some other things in to it, then roped a tent and blanket to my borrowed bicycle's handlebars before setting off for the 14 mile hike/bike up the mountain to the work site.

Hiking up in to the canyons late at night is both fun and dangerous on a Friday night since there's the occasional need to dodge drunk drivers and people in cars racing -- at times with their headlights off -- up and down the highway. Along the way up I stopped at the work site to see how much had been done the previous week.

The access trail had been worked on the week previously with the first leg of the trail getting a lot of attention and the boulder-strewn third leg of the trail also getting worked on. It was difficult to see exactly how much work had been done since it was very dark, but I could see a lot of progress.

The hike up to Coldbrook Campground was another five miles or so, and I was able to walk right past the point where the Forest Service gate had originally been located. (The new gate is in place right above the Coldbrook Campground.)

That night at Coldbrook Campground, the trash bins were being visited by at least one bear who was pounding on the trash bin lids trying to get at whatever was inside.

Since I had food with me in my tent I packed up my tent and my other things and then bicycled back down to the Rincon Fire Station. There I set my tent back up, laid out my things... and then had to pack up again because a different bear was going through the Rincon Fire Station's trash bins.

I packed up my sleeping bag and biked down to East Fork Bridge and there I spent the night (bears and I don't get along well ever since my old tent was shredded and my yellow backpack got ripped up by a bear.)

In the morning I packed up and biked back up to Rincon, getting passed by the other Trailbuilders along the way who drove up in their cars early in the morning.

Ryan, his friend (didn't catch the name) and I worked on leg two of the access trail, widening it while everyone else worked on the boulders along leg three, cracking boulders and positioning them to make a good safe walking path.

Ryan and the other guy did a great job on the trail. I just kind of moved dirt and rocks and I usually leave the trail lumpy and uneven so someone else has to come along and clean up my work. When Ryan and his friend were done, their sections of the trail was smooth and comfortable enough to sleep on.

And a good time was had by all.