Cedar Canyon Trail Hanging Tree Removal

Photographs are provided at the bottom of this web page. A video of some of this is also provided.

20/Jun/07:

Hanging trees across hiking trails constitute a safety hazard that eventually either have to be pulled down or eventually fall on their own -- hopefully without falling on someone! And even hanging trees that cross trails in areas that are closed to the public constitute some measure of hazard since such trails are still utilized by people: people who walk in on foot, and hunters, fairly often.

Yesterday (20/Oct/07) the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders organized the removal of a tree over hanging Cedar Canyon Trail within the Crystal Lake Recreation Area, a tree which probably would not have fallen on its own for many years to come but which was still a fallen tree that would need to be bucked up and removed eventually.

This hiking trail is a very popular one since it follows a running stream and the trees are fairly dense, consisting of sugar pine, bristle cone pine, Douglas fir, oak, and an occasional maple tree. The woods are shaded and the trail is a fairly well built and well maintained one.

The area where the tree was removed is at a section of the trail where the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders had established a retaining wall which eventually buckled due to the moisture in the surrounding hillside against which the Trailbuilders established the trail.

This is somewhat amusing since when we dropped about three thousand pounds of Douglas fir on the trail, the retaining wall was pushed backwards by about another two inches or so, and eventually the crews of volunteers will be returning to dig out and fix that area of the trail once and for all using baskets which will hold up to the dynamic geologic forces a whole lot better.

For this project we had Ben, Mike, Seth, Lou, and myself, and so far as trail work days went, this was a fairly easy volunteer day. I got to use a dull ax to remove limbs from the tree to be removed and any opportunity to swing an ax is a good one!

Mike did all of the actual sawing but the rest of us were able to widen and restore a section of the trail around the fallen tree. We also took a look further up the trail to examine another fallen tree that could some day be a hazard however that tree was well lodged and probably won't come down anytime within the next 100 years, any way.

There is actually some water distribution infrastructure in there along the creek, probably dating back some 50 years or so. An old and rusted four inch water pipe runs along the hiking trail and leads to a concrete box where rusty valves are located, and further up the creek there is a water pipe capped off standing straight up where there was probably a stream coming from the hillside many years ago.

There is a white metal box embedded in along the stream that the Trailbuilders looked at for removal, possibly using a metal hook and a grip hoist to pull out of the ground so that the metal garbage can be packed out, hopefully in pieces.

It was an uneventful day for most of us. Last week end there were a great many poachers in the campgrounds however today we not only didn't see any but we didn't hear any of them shooting. Last week end the Department of Fish and Game and the Sheriff's Office repeatedly had to come up and flush poachers out of the area, but today we were able to work safely without having to worry about drunks with guns up there.

Unfortunately it wasn't an uneventful day for Bron and a crew of Boy Scouts who were in the area evaluating the rock slide area along Windy Gap Trail that the Trailbuilders had cleared about five weeks ago. (That rock slide area needs a retaining wall established to hold back the hillside so that Windy Gap remains safe.) Some car problems occured but Bron and the other volunteers were able to get their damaged vehicle to the Rincon Fire Station easilly enough.

And a good time was had by most!