|
Mt. Diablo | Mt. Diablo |
|
|
The Weekend Update28 Fabulous Volunteers SCA alumni and staff were joined by the Concord-Mt. Diablo Trail Ride Association (CMDTRA), Mt. Diablo State Park Volunteers, and Save Mt. Diablo members. Most of the trail work was done within the state park boundary although we did work on some of CMDTRA’s land too. The majority of the work was extensive pruning and lopping for horse riders, 10ft tall and 6 ft wide. Our weekend started off at the CMDTRA clubhouse with introductions of the many partners and a special talk by an ecology consultant who told the group about five endangered species growing on a parcel of privately owned land that was recently sold to become part of the state park. After some talk about tick and poison oak avoidance as well as tool safety from our state park guide, we split into four groups to head to our work spots.
Sunday, we awoke to a loud group of cows further down the hills and after a fabulous breakfast, continued our pruning and trail tread work. There was even more poison oak to trim on Sunday compared to the day before, but we worked hard to clear it without too much contact. It was a morning of wildlife sightings as the groups stumbled into quail nest with four eggs, saw a lot of hummingbirds and spotted a rattlesnake slithering across the trail. We were promised fish tacos for lunch, so we finished up and headed back to the clubhouse. Special thanks are due to Morris Older who helped bring this project to our attention and coordinated with our other partner organizations, to Chris Barnhart of CMDTRA who made her club's facilities available to us and helped to rank the trails of concern, to Jeff Beach of Mt. Diablo State Park, who provided his volunteer crew on Saturday and tools for the weekend, and to Burt Bogardis and Heath Bartosh of Save Mt. Diablo, who helped us avoid endangered plants. |
After a hot day of pruning manzanita, sage brush, trees of poison oak and many other shrubs, we let the thought of ice cream back at the clubhouse guide us back up the steep trails. We were lucky to have a swimming pool at our disposal to relax our aching feet. SCA alumni were joined by more members of the CMDTRA that evening for their monthly meeting and BBQ. This social event gave everyone a chance to relax, and it was a great opportunity to spread the word about SCA and our 50th Anniversary. The evening ended with a game of Yahtzee in the clubhouse as raccoons roamed around the swimming pool and coyotes pups howled not too far from our tents.