August 12, 2010

Hitch 5
Location: Caples Creek Trail
Desolation Wilderness, Maud Lake; Via Rockbound Pass Trail, Wrights Lake Trailhead
Dates: 08/03/2010 - 08/11/2010
Work Completed:
- Total Trail Maintained (ft): (Caples) 250
(Desolation) 450
- Trail Rehabilitation/Reconstruction (ft): (Caples) 100
(Desolation) 281
- Sites Rehabilitated: (Caples) 2
(Desolation) 2
- Turnpike (ft) (Desolation) 85
- Drainage Structures: (Caples) 2
(Desolation) 2
- Rocksteps: (Caples) 1
(Desolation) 2
Hitch Chief: Nathan Gates

August 3rd: This is the start of the last hitch! Most of this hitch is going to be in Desolation Wilderness; however our agency contact wants us to work up Caples Creek for one more day before we go into the wilderness of Desolation. There is a spot where the rocks are starting to encroach on the trail corridor. On the hike out we discovered a spot where the trail seemed to split so we erased the social trail with rehabilitation and placing obstructions in the path. We then continued to the rocky spot and cleared the larger rocks to define the trail, installed two drainage structures and two check-steps.

August 4th: To Desolation today! Started the day making pancakes and then moved on to packing and dividing the group gear. After dropping off the two personal vehicles and the trailer at the Forest Service Workcenter we had lunch at Wrights Lake Trailhead with agency contact, Bill Walker. We then started the five mile hike up to Maud Lake. After the hike, Bill showed us the work site and we all slept very soundly.

August 5th: Today we got to move rocks. We started out the day gathering huge slabs of rock to use for the two rock culverts. In the two and a half hours of coordinated slab hunting we acquired a gargantuan pile of slabs. For the rest of the day we gathered crush and mineral soil. The crush involved finding a nice place to sit and filling your pack with small rocks while mineral soil required digging through lots of small rocks under a huge boulder. When the end finally came we had two large piles of crush and one of mineral soil.

August 6th: Today was one for the books. Our agency contact told us to explore more of the trail and go up to rockbound pass, which the trail is named for, and take the day easy. We got up as-per normal and hiked up to the pass. We took the whole day to explore up the ridge and play in one of the last snow banks. At the end of our day we hiked back to the lake.

August 7th: Back to work today, more preparation work for the Wilderness Volunteers. We gathered more crush and had two people under the rock digging out mineral soil. We also started to get the turnpikes ready by digging out the lines for the logs. We started to prepare some of lodge-pole pines by limbing two pines and debarking one of them.

August 8th: The Wilderness Volunteers arrived today. We started out the day with, of course, more preparation work for the volunteers. We started the day by stripping one of the fresher lodge-pole pines and collecting more material for the turnpikes. Around noon, Jon Glenn who was asked to come out and do some technical rigging showed up with the volunteers pack support. He helped us by setting up a high line to more the crush we were gathering even faster. We have two awe-inspiring piles of crush.

August 9th: With the volunteers here we could start some of the work that we were preparing for. We installed the two rock culverts and got the volunteers working the remaining lodge-pole pines. With the volunteers came some Forest Service Volunteers. There are four Forest Service Employees, including Wilderness Manager Jon Erickson, four volunteers, and one rigging man. There are a lot of people working out here and it’s nice to get to talk to other people for a change. We were able to get most of the lodge-poles in position to be placed and were able to place two sections.

August 10th: More work with the volunteers which is nice because we get to work at a much faster pace than before. We were able to get all the lodge-pole pines in the ground and used up all of our crush and most of our slab rocks. We ended the day by gathering more crush and mineral soil using the high line that Jon Glenn set up.

August 11th: Dear Journal this is the end. This was hike out day, after a quick meal of pancakes we stuffed our packs, said good bye to our volunteer friends and hiked out. We made sure our tools were cleaned and sharpened then made our way to a new home in South Lake Tahoe. Soon we’ll all be done with SCA and school will be the next stepping stone.