The final month of the project finally came, and it came far too quickly. The crew started off August with a three day hitch to the Valley Forge Campground. Valley Forge was a closed campground that had been washed out when the rains came last year, and it has been closed ever since. There, we lead five volunteers in restoring five picnic tables, excavated a fire ring, and repaired a wooden bridge. After Valley Forge, the crew spent most of its remaining time trying to finish the work we began at the Chilao Visitor Center, namely fixing the 3-panel display. This project took more time than expected to complete, but we finally finished it, completing a project that had been in limbo for at least a month.
We had one more Trails project with the Sierra Club on the PCT at Mill Creek where we had about 23 volunteers building timber structures and improving the tread of the trail.
We took one last hike starting at the East Fork Trailhead and got to see the Bridge to Nowhere. This actual bridge was built in the 1930s and was intended to be part of a highway that would run through the forest. After the area got flooded and several rock slides, the highway was abandoned. Now the bridge is a popular hangout spot for people hiking through the Sheep Mountain Wilderness.
The crew finished up the project building picnic tables at the Eagles’ Roost Picnic Area, decommissioning the Vista Picnic Area, and one last day of removing Spanish Broom with a dozen volunteers.
Finally, on August 20 our project came to an end. In all, our crew had lead 301 volunteers, reopened one campground and one picnic area, restored two other campgrounds and seven day use areas, restored three trails (about ½ mile on each trail), and removed a ton of Spanish Broom. Not only did we accomplish a tremendous amount of work, we set the standard that all other crews will be measured by.
