The Trail Companion

Winter 2002

Trail Center Notes

Trail Construction and Maintenance

REI Community Service Day at Arastradero Preserve, Oct. 27

We made our final appearance at Arastradero Preserve with a big showing of volunteers for the first REI Community Service Day held at Arastradero Preserve. Jason Flesher, REI's Special Events Coordinator said that in their past community service days had focused on beach cleanup, but they decided to sponsor a project more directly tied to REI's emphasis. In all, 43 volunteers (over a third from Cal Berkeley's Eta Kappa Nu - Mu Chapter and a number more from Los Altos High School) from gave their Saturday to improve the Preserve as we joined the Arastradero Preserve Stewardship Project staff to fix drainage on a badly rutted segment of Acorn Trail in the northwest corner of the Preserve. We also worked to close and restore a redundant section of the Perimeter Trail back to more natural state by breaking up highly compacted earth, knocking down berms to let water drain more easily, and spreading rice straw over the top to prevent additional erosion.

Loppers at the Tool Party (click for larger version)

Photo by Geoffrey Skinner

The ground was like concrete after the long dry summer, but the volunteers dug with gusto and accomplished everything we'd planned to complete by the time we broke for lunch provided by REI. REI also gave a wealth of thank-you gifts and drawing prizes, including water bottles, camping gear and a very nice backpack. Please check out photos from this event in the Photo Gallery section of our website.
We expect to work in this area of the Preserve again in the spring, with another possible reroute or additional erosion control in the offing.

Thank you to everyone who put in a great Saturday!

Scott Heeschen, Alan Ross, David Smernoff, Rich Allsop, Boyd Wise, Darwin Poulos, Geoffrey Skinner (crew leaders); Karen Cotter (Arastradero Preserve Stewardship Project), Lee Hickenbotham and City of Palo Alto Open Space Rangers; Jason Flesher and the REI staff; Alex Fabrikant, Benson Lu, Ray Jung, Carl Wang, Jiong Shen, Aaron Jow, Phoebus Chen, Claude Ezner, Camille Ezner, Irene Ezner, Neve Ezner, Gregory Chen, Jacqui Kuni, Daniel Hsu, Jen Hsu, Amy Tong, Rebecca De Cillis, Jim Elemen, Bart Balocki, Andrew Buysse, Colin Abraham, Jeff Clark, Esther Su, Sabra Abula, Eric Buysse, Jay, Anne Dowe Delreye, Tex Houston.

Fall and Winter Builds in the Redwoods on Gazos Creek, Sept. 15, Oct. 6, Dec. 8, 2001 and Jan. 12, 2002

On Sept. 15, we held our third session at Pescadero Conservation Alliance's Field Research Station at Gazos Creek (see story, this issue). Following our earlier sessions in July and August, we concentrated on completing our 14-foot bridge over a tributary of Gazos Creek and the approach down into the ravine. Although we had to wait until Oct. 6 to put the final touches on the railings, everyone enjoyed being able to use the new bridge at the end of the day. We also improved several hundred yards of trail downstream from the bridge.

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