28/Jul/07:
28/Jul/07 -- Mount Waterman, Twin Peaks, Three Points, Buckhorn
"Only the strong will survive."
July 28th, First Day
Saturday was July 28th, the start of the trail clearing project
which quickly became known as "The Ordeal." Those of us who
lived had fun, I should note since it's possible that prospective
volunteers reading this write-up might be contemplating joining us
some time in the future. And since we all survived, we all had fun.
Saturday began like so many others: A restless night spent dozing
off and on, coming fully awake at Sunrise with the renewed
realization that life from now on can't be expected to get any
better. When I had achieved the age of 40 such mornings culminated
in distressed screams upon waking however now, six years later, I'm
down to the audible groans to greet the rising Sun.
I stumbled from one wall to the next, managed to get my computer
turned on and searching for email, then I started throwing things
into my old canvas backpack, topping it off with a laptop computer
and a video camera (actually a web camera, suitable for indoor
light only but modified with a lens from my sunglasses.)
The instant I finished responding to email and cinching up the
last rope strap on my backpack, Mike drove up and we piled my
backpack on top of his forest tools and I crammed myself into the
passenger seat of his car, sitting next to his six foot long
crosscut saw. With Benny Goodman and a whole slew of really old
dead guys coming from the speakers, we took a short drive to the
meeting place.
At the meeting place there waiting for us was Ben and Janette (I
can never get her name spelled properly, even after being told how
it's done a dozen times.) Brad and another volunteer met us and
promptly at 8:00 a.m. we left the meeting place and drove up to
the Rincon Fire Station of the San Gabriel River Ranger District
of the Angeles National Forest along Highway 39 (also known as
Azusa Blvd. also known as San Gabriel Canyon.)
At Rincon we met Tom, John, Larry and Dan, and together we
numbered ten. We would lose Ben and Janette later on but we
would gain Phil for a grand total of nine crew working this week
end -- and what a week end it was!
From Rincon (after acquiring the special permits that were needed)
Mike officially logged us in to the Forest Service roster of
volunteers and USFS employees working on the project and then
we headed North toward Crystal Lake, past Crystal Lake, along
the section of Highway 39 that remains closed (due to parts of
the highway having slid into the canyons below) and up on to
Highway 2 -- Angeles Crest Highway -- which is also closed due
to parts of the highway missing.
From there we headed approximately West toward where we would
enter into the Mount Waterman hiking trail and the beginning of
The Ordeal.
Those of you who might know a little about me know that I like
low technology in favor of high technology, and my backpack of
choice is no different: Old when it was bought second hand in
the mid 1970's, the backpack became even more the worse for wear
after being slit open lengthwise by a bear up at Crystal Lake
when there were a bunch of Boy Scouts up there cooking hot-dogs
one night. Argh!
Because my pack is old technology and the straps are macramé (which
I did myself with green twine) Ben suggested that I might live to
see the project through to its end if I were to strap my old back
to one of his organization's cargo packs. That turned out to be a
very good idea since without a doubt I wouldn't have made it with
my narrow, flesh-eating macramé straps.
Two weeks ago we had squirreled away 10.5 gallons of drinking water
up at the base of Twin Peaks on the saddle, and because of the heat
and the effort we would be putting in this week end, we knew that
we would need all the water we could get.
Because of this some Sierra Club members carried up at least 16
bottles of drinking water and left it at the Mount Waterman / Twin
Peaks trail split with a sign letting other hikers know they
should leave it alone.
In addition to all that water we each had brought what we hoped
was enough water for two days of heat and fortunately, accounting
for all the water that we ended up using during the two days, we
all had plenty and most had a container of water left over when
we finished the effort and hiked back down to the Buckhorn
trailhead.
Whew! And I think it was a close thing, too, since another
two hours in the heat might have drained us dry of drinking
water. (Actually we would have cut the second day short had
we seen we wouldn't have enough water to see the project through
to completion.)
Since we started with 8 people -- six volunteers, two USFS
people -- we broke into two teams, each with a crosscut saw,
and each with wedges, ax, shovel, and whatever else is needed
for this kind of work. Since I knew that Mike would be on the
largest downed tree across the hiking trail (twice across the
trail since it fell on a switchback) and since I knew that would
be the most technically challenging bucking, I asked to join
Mike's team.
Team A -- the higher quality, most excellent, better looking
team members team -- consisted of myself, Mike, Tom, and Dan.
Team B -- the lower quality, less handsome team -- consisted of
John, Larry, Brad, and the younger volunteer -- the guy who runs
six miles every day regardless of the weather. Later on in the
first day Phil would join the A team (though he's not nearly as
pretty as the rest of us in A team to officially qualify.)
At the trailhead Mike went carefully through the Job Hazard
Analysis evaluation and all workers stepped through it and
commented on the aspects of the JHA. When that was completed
we shouldered our equipment, picked up tools that we would hand
carry into the wilderness, then we started up toward Mount Waterman.
It's not a difficult hike up to Mount Waterman, and it's not that
difficult to get to Twin Peaks and from there up to Three Points.
Carrying tree bucking equipment makes the effort difficult, and
doing it in hot weather makes the effort fairly brutal.
As it was I was fairly lightly loaded. In addition to my camping
equipment, food, enough water to drown cats in, a laptop computer,
a video camera, and my book to read at night, I got a two edged
ax which I really enjoyed carrying (since my bright yellow safety
hat and the double bladed ax upped my overall manliness
considerably!) and I got the long-handled shovel to carry
in my hands.
Mike was carting up about twice the weight I was porting, and
he also had a Forest Service radio pinned to his chest -- along
with a GPS receiver, FAX machine, and some other unidentifiable
bit of electronics I didn't inquire about.
At the first downed tree the group split into our two teams, the
team I was on continuing on up the trail and the other team
stopping to take out that first tree that needed to be removed.
The hike to our team's first effort wasn't a difficult one despite
adding more water to everyone's backpacks once we made it to the
water bottles that the Sierra Club members had stashed for us.
Along the way, incidentally, we talked with many hikers, all of
which thanked us greatly for our efforts -- the efforts done this
week end as well as all the countless hours we and other
volunteers have done in the past.
Hikers love us!
The first large tree was, as I said, a technically difficult
one. Tom is very good at these things -- he's got an engineering
talent -- and Mike has a lot of experience with the crosscut saw
and with bucking difficult trees. (Mike was responsible for our
safety and John was responsible for our health AND safety -- the
USFS works glove-in-glove with its volunteers ad safety is the
top priority.)
The first thing that everyone agreed upon was to swamp out the
bark, branches, and other debris surrounding the area so that
we would have a safe working environment. The sawers made sure
that they had escape routes away from the tree that they are
cutting, and they constantly made sure that their escape path
was kept free from people standing in the way in case they
needed to walk quickly away from the tree.
The second thing we did was to remove all of the branches from
the sections of the downed tree that we would be removing.
Removing the limbs is a safety issue however doing so makes it
easy to roll the bucked log off of the trail. Removing the
branches took a great deal of time.
There's a great deal of discussion about the tree to be bucked,
how it lays, and the general lay of the land. We also discuss
possible circumstances which might occur, such as hikers coming
from either direction so that we know in advance what to do and
how to handle anything that might crop up during the cut (this
was important because on the second day we did get some hikers
at a critical point.)
Safety. That's the word that matters on these things. Cutting
apart downed trees isn't something that's totally without risks.
Even when the tree is laying flat on the ground, using a six or
seven foot long saw comes with a certain amount of risks. When
the tree is on a hillside supported in a number of places,
sagging or otherwise binding in other places, the risks
increase -- so safety is a big issue on these kinds of efforts.
The actual cutting took time however a great deal of time is
spent evaluating the task, progressing for a bit, and then
stepping back to re-evaluate the task again to see if anything
has changed and to see if any new approach should be discussed.
The final part of the bucking effort consisted of placing the
first cut on the tree up on the high point above the upper trail
section. This cut started out with a great deal of rotting wood
and bark removed such that when all was done, we had about three
feet to get through. When the first cut was completed, overall
the lower section of the tree moved perhaps a quarter of an
inch -- it turned out to be a highly skillful cut, aided greatly
by the removal of the limbs and ground cover.
The second cut was a bit more complicated since the wood was
harder and it involved a bit of a compound cut. We wanted the
section that dropped to pivot a number of degrees while dropping
and to side roll a bit as it did so. In the video of the first
section dropping out we see it worked perfectly: one last draw
on the crosscut, noise from the holding wood fiber separating,
the sawyer gets time to step back, and the section drops and
rolls about four feet, perfectly aligned to be shoved off the
trail and over the side.
With the successful bucking of the first section of the downed
tree, we looked at what had been done and we decided to not start
the third cut which would clear the lower section of the hiking
trail. The amount of time we had spent sawing and cleaning the
ground already was enough. Coupled to the hike we had done, we
decided we would do the smart, safe thing and finish the tree
in the morning.
We hiked to the Twin Peaks saddle and all nine of us went off
into our own separate directions from there. Tom and I stayed
on the saddle and we got to listen to a tree fracture, splinter,
and then fall about 100 feet or so from us just as it started
getting dark and the Moon hadn't risen yet (the JHA specifically
mentioned not sleeping under hazardous trees, by the way. We
slept out in the open on the saddle.)
Most of the other workers went either up to the top of Twin
Peaks or to the helicopter landing pad however I decided that
the additional half mile hike there and back would kill me so
I dropped my stuff there on the saddle, stumbled around on sore
feet, and had dinner -- crackers, mustard and green olive
sandwiches, and Good N Plenty candy -- with about a half
gallon of water!
You would think that all the exhaustion would have led us all
to sleep well. I don't think any of us did. There were flies
bothering most of us -- only Tom had brought a netting to keep
the flies away. I don't know if anyone brought a tent but I
don't think anyone did since we were already loaded down enough
with the weight of our tools and stuff.
So the only way to sleep was to cover our faces with shirts,
sleeping bags, and other hot, stifling things, just to keep the
flies off. I found that I could cover myself with my sleeping
bag and prop the unzipped side open on my removed boots so that
I got cool air and the flies rarely learned to fly under the
sleeping bag flap to try to suck my blood. It was still a
fitful, dozing kind of rest that rarely got to the actual
sleeping point.
While lying there out in the open I could watch the bats swoop
around in the twilight and the gathering dark. The night sky
was filled with them, swift creatures darting in pseudo-random
vectors seemingly burning up their delta-vee in pursuit of
acrobatic fun. Instead they were hunting the insects and,
since I was becoming murderous thanks to the endless annoyance
of the flies, I welcomed the air show.
Since it was extremely silent most of the time (with only the
wind and high-flying jet aircraft occasionally rising above a
whisper) I was able to listen to the bats echo-locate their
insect meals. individual bats in my hearing range used two
distinct frequencies of sonar but within those two frequencies
the individual bats pulsed at differing rates.
As a bat swooped and dove hunting its dinner, it would echo
range its surroundings with a constant rate of pings,
disappearing into the dark if it didn't find anything nearby.
When a bat found something close, it would increase or decreases
the rate at which it issued its pings and I could watch it home
in on an insect as it did so. Once the bat acquired its meal
it would resume its trolling rate of ping.
When a bat encountered something larger than its dinner --
another bat or a Good N Plenty -- it would alter its ping rate
for a moment and then it would dodge away and resume its normal
trolling ping rate until it found something small enough that
would be worth eating.
The air show was a good one. The acrobatics would have made
Russian jet pilots turn white with fright. And to my left,
King Jupiter rose above the horizon, followed by his mistress,
the Moon. As evening drew on and I could not sleep, high clouds
moved in from the North East and turned the ground below dark
once again. A wind kicked up and high above me the clouds
started breaking up, turning the ground below into a patchwork
of brilliantly lit splotches surrounded by pitch dark.
I prefer the dark and the quiet.
Did I mention the aches and pains? The blisters? Did I
mention the Sunburn? I recall mentioning the inability to
sleep the previous night and the difficulty sleeping this night,
but I don't recall saying much about how deleterious the day had
been to my general, overall health. An accurate assessment was
made as I lay there and (an hour past midnight) I realized that
I felt damned good! Day one had been successful and nobody had
gotten the least bit hurt. With that realization -- and with my
sleeping bag over my head -- I got a few hours of fitful sleep.
July 29th, Second Day
There was no point in knowing what time it was when I woke up,
and in fact I don't wear a watch since time is in any event an
illusion, something that is equated to money, and since we're
volunteers who aren't paid, the money equaled zero and thus the
time was likewise unimportant. Time only becomes an issue when
we start to run out of it so whatever time it was, we got up in
time.
Um, also we don't wear watches, rings, or anything else like that
on these projects since such things can get caught in our tools.
And that's a Bad Thing.
I got my backpack lowered from the tree that I had hung it in
since the bears around these parts like to shred things --
including people who they suspect might be holding something
tasty. I topped off my water container and strapped a gallon
container from our stash to the top of my borrowed cargo pack,
then I left the saddle and headed toward the work site.
When I got to the tree to start the second day, I got there
ahead of everyone else enough for me to take a little walk
around the place. A side trail that leads from the switchback
we were clearing down to the bottom of a ravine that normally
carries water held some promise however I found the ravine to
be utterly dry. Had there been any water at all I would have
afforded myself a cool bath, scrubbing off the encrusted dirt
and dried blood and snot (okay, so I'm not nearly as pretty as
I like to claim I am.)
Since the place was dry I sat on the shaded trail sideways,
dangled my legs off the trail and out into space, leaned back
against the hillside, covered my face with my old leather hat,
and tried to sleep before the rest of the crews resumed work.
The third cut was started and the other team headed toward Three
Points where six or seven other downed trees were across the
trail. The third cut on the big tree that we bucked was done
slowly and with extreme caution.
The two-handed crosscut saw was used until there was about four
inches of holding wood, and then one handle was removed from the
saw and the cut continued with one sawyer. A tie wedge was
hammered across the cut to hold the bucked section in place in
case any side bind was present and the cut continued.
Three wedges were used while the cut progressed until at the
very end the saw was removed and the wedges were hit with a
hammer, then the sawyer stood back, waited, watched and listened,
and then hammered again. With a whack of the hammer we got noise
from the holding wood and some movement.
The sawyer stepped back, waited, checked the position of all the
other workers once again, and then stepped forward to strike a
wedge once last time. With the final whack the holding wood
parted and the final section of the big bucking dropped away --
exactly where and how it had been predicted. Success! Damn!
We are good!
Dan did most of the finishing trail restoration work after the
bucked section had been shoved off of the trail, using a McLoude
tool. At the end the switchback looked great!
After packing up the tools and calling the other team on the
radio, we headed toward the other team, met up with them at a
downed tree across the trail that they were working on, then we
passed them to work on the next downed tree in line. We
leap-frogged each other until all but the very last tree was
removed from the trail (the last one is something that people
just step over but John and Larry will return to remove it later.)
At one large tree -- about two or two and a half feet wide --
we had some difficulty in that we appeared to have top bind AND
bottom bind. The saw was pinched regardless of whether we worked
from the top of the tree or from the bottom so it was giving us
difficulty.
Phil suggested that we cut the hillside side of the tree first,
dig out the dirt from under that section, then sit on the section
so that the top bind on the lower part of the tree would be
removed. The second cut would go slowly enough so that everyone
could vacate the tree once the sawyer got to the single-bucking
point.
This worked well. After making the first cut on the other side
we tried to top cut, found we still had a problem, remove a
supporting branch from the bottom, found we still had a problem,
tested under bucking from the bottom up, found that slow and
exhausting, then we dug out the dirt and sat on the tree, allowing
the second cut to be made from the top.
A metal wedge followed by a rolling wedge kept the cut open and
eventually the people sitting on the log could leave.
About two inches of holding wood remained when three hikers
approached my side of the log (the same side that Mike the sawyer
at the time was on.) We had discussed this eventuality and we
asked the hikers to pause a moment since we were at a critical,
unsafe-for-hikers point in the cut. The sawyer and the rest of
us continued the effort and watched to make sure the hikers
didn't approach.
About half a minute of more sawing and the section of the tree
dropped. Some shoves and the bucked section was rolled off of
the trail -- and we got some welcomed thanks from the hikers who
continued on toward Buckhorn.
Eventually all of the downed trees on the schedule got bucked
up, including two trees that weren't on the schedule but needed
to be moved just because we were already in the field. All nine
members gathered and then we started the virtual Death March back
to the paved highway some three or so miles away.
I called it the "Death March Segment" since that section of the
trail crosses over exposed San Gabriel Granite rock and given
the 100 plus heat, some areas were kind of like a furnace. One
section that we crossed, by the way, was a meadow complete with
dense grass and ferns.
Water seeping from the hillside under ground waters a large and
spread area so there's a micro ecology stuck in the middle of
the trail that is completely unique from all the rest of the
trail. Trees grow above the grassy ferns and, in fact, the trail
itself at times disappeared under the growth. It was the perfect
place for me to pitch my tent in the cool shade, far from other
humans, emerging from time to time to demand water from any hiker
who might come within range.
It was during the Death March that the blisters on my left foot
all kind of merged together and, ironically, that made each step
more comfortable than they had been back when there were several
smaller blisters. Disgusting, ain't it? Toss in a nose-bleed
from the heat and exercise (which several people pointed out to
me) and you get a better idea of how it was.
Um, actually I like to lie a lot -- or at least try to make
things sound more exciting than they actually were. A quick
nose-bleed, one major blister, exhaustion, and Sunburn was
actually extremely fun.
We should do this every week end.
Larry, the six-mile-a-day-runner, and I think one or two other
volunteers exited the trail at the Buckhorn trailhead, followed
by John and myself which paused at times to try to locate some
major asshole who was shooting a firearm somewhere in the forest.
Hitting the flat paved road with all of our gear was kind of
strange. Sailors being at sea for any length of time might hit
land and find it just as strange. The feet get used to being
cantered a bit to the left to brace against the slight slope
of the hiking trail that allows water to roll off of it and when
getting to flat land, the inclination toward resisting the
slight leftward-leaning list translates into mild vertigo.
Some how we had humped the Death March quickly enough that we
were about an hour early ahead of Ben and Jeanette who eventually
arrived to take us back down to Rincon. At Rincon Tom replaced a
flat tire on his vehicle, the tools were put away (after being
inspected) and then we headed back down the mountain. One broken
two-edged ax was left for Ben to repair.
We should do this again. It's not something we should do every
week end or once a month, but it's something we should do maybe
four times a year. Smaller, less difficult tree removal projects
are done all year around, of course, but they are half-day or
one-day projects and they're usually on trails which are short
and thus don't acquire a great deal of hiking with tools and
water to get to before the work can be done. Also we usually
use gasoline powered chainsaws when we're not working in the
designated wilderness.
These efforts are vital, however. Hiking trails are used frequently,
some getting large numbers of hikers, and hiking trails are greatly
appreciated. When a downed tree alters a trail and people walk
around, they'll create a trail which may not be exactly safe and
which may cause unacceptable erosion. Many times people will
climb over or under a tree and that also conveys a certain amount
of hazard to the hiker.
Tree removal is a constant need and the people who use such hiking
trails really do appreciate the effort that volunteers and United
States Forest Service workers put forward to re-open trails and
to keep trails reasonably safe and open.
On the flip side I find myself extremely privileged to volunteer
and work with such super people. I've said it again and I'll
always keep saying it: The San Gabriel River Ranger District
Forest Service people are the BEST USFS people anywhere in the
United States, and the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders
volunteers who join forces with the USFS so often are without
question California's premier trail building and restoration
organization -- bar none!
This effort was a blast. It was fun, it was difficult, and it
certainly stretched me to my limits -- and beyond. I'm looking
forward to the next project -- hopefully after my feet have had
time to recover.
If you think you might like to get involved in something like
this, you can contact Lois Pickens (USFS) Volunteer Coordinator
(among other things!) at the San Gabriel River Ranger District
Headquarters in Glendora, California, or you may contact the
San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders, both organizations which
can be located by performing a Google search.
I can't guarantee you that you'll have fun, but I can guarantee
you that you'll get experience and exercise. Oh man and how.
Photographs are provided at the bottom of this web page. Video of
the photographs as well as videos of the tree cuttings are also provided.
Still Photographs
Looking around the Rincon Fire Station area
Looking around the Rincon Fire Station area again
Looking around the Rincon Fire Station one last time
Mike gets us through the Forest Service gate
At the Mount Waterman Trailhead we assemble our tools
Larry the USFS guy who works REALLY hard
Brad, Tom, and Mike
John and the USFS Jeep that I want to steal
A look from the trailhead across the highway before the safety meeting
We ste through the JHA one item at a time, focus is on safety
Here is everyone at the Job Hazard Analysis going through the assessment
Hikers continually use this trail up to Mount Waterman
It's time to get the tools distributed and packed up
On the start of the Mount Waterman trail
And another look along the trail. Camera in one hand, shovel in the other
A look into the wilderness from the hiking trail
The trail is in really good shape all along its many miles
The forest appears to be healthy and managing in the rainless heat
We pause along the way from time to time because of the heat
We get to our first tree -- the major tree cutting effort
The limbs get removed and the ground around the tree gets cleared
Note the slope of the tree that we will be bucking
Limbs are removed with ax and crosscut saw -- as well as with a hammer
Here is the first section removed and the ground not yet cleaned up
This is the second section of the trail that still needs to be cleared
On the hike from the work site to Twin Peaks saddle
Tom fixes a hot Ready To Eat (MRE) meal of some rotting animal at the saddle
The second day back at the big tree we roll away the second buck
More of us get involved in rolling away the second bucked section
And the trail has been cleared! Success
Dan takes notes of some kind from time to time along the trail
We head off to other trees that need to be cut up and removed
Another tree that needs to be removed from the trail
As I recall, this downed tree took one cut and then a lot of shoving
Same tree, I believe, with limbs removed
This tree was cleaned up and removed by the other team of sawyers
The other team had a lot of branches to remove first
A look around as we hike to the next tree to be removed
The next tree to be cut up and moved off of the hiking trail
Another look around the area while we hike to the next tree
I think that the other team took care of this downed tree
And another look at a tree being cut apart
After a tree gets removed, the trail around the area gets cleaned up
Laugh! John poses for the camera at a difficult tree
A close up of the six foot long crosscut saw. Note the safety gear
Further up the trail after the difficult tree was finally cleared up
And that was the last tree in our schedule so we start to head down
At the trailhead we wait for Ban to come pick us up
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San Gabriel Mountains
Trailbuilders (SGMTBs) or the
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Please note that information on this web page may be inaccurate.