Project: Sugarloaf Mountain Open Space - City of San Mateo
Photo Album: 1804-21 Sugarloaf Mountain
Earth Day 2018 saw the Trail Center continue our new trail project at Sugarloaf park (Laurelwood Park) in San Mateo. About 40 volunteers came to help us complete the “Segment 3” trail on a beautiful spring day. The new trail—now called the “Dappled Light Trail”—connects the Amphitheater Trail that we built a couple years ago with a major trail junction on the south-central side of the park. We were confident this would be our fourth and final workday here. We were correct…sort of.
The work areas were split into 3 distinct areas. Dave Croker supervised the upper work areas where crews finished about 150 feet of trail, constructed a switchback, and made the connection to the Amphitheater Trail. Judd Volino supervised the crews that worked on the bottom section of trail that connects with the Salson Trail. That section was longer at about 300 feet, but had a shallower side slope in many places. One last crew tackled the third distinct work project which was a major retaining wall that kept the trail on grade as it passed around a beautiful and unique buckeye tree. Both the upper and lower crews finished* the work within their sections with a few stragglers staying on an extra half hour to finish up. That meant we could officially open the entire new trail to hikers! We had our first hikers before we picked up the last tool.
The retaining wall was quite a beast. We used a new design based upon state park designs using 4”x8” pressure treated lumber for longevity. We expect this trail will get a lot of traffic all year long, so we wanted this structure to last. The wall crew used generators and power tools to shape the timbers, and heavy duty drills to bore holes for 4-foot long foundation stakes that helped hold all the pieces together. The crew here worked hard for another 45-60 minutes past all the other volunteers until the backfill that had been created during the rest of the day ran out. They were understandably pooped when they finally made it back to the trailhead where the rest of the stragglers were still congregated. At this point something happened that I can’t remember happening before: 6 more folks decided to head back out and try to complete the backfill of the retaining wall. For the next hour and a half, these 6 diehards widened and flattened the nearby approaches to the retaining wall in order to generate enough backfill to almost fill the wall. The extra work also widened up the trail to closer to Trail Center standards. It was quite a sight to see. Make sure you visit the photo album for this project to fully appreciate the efforts of everyone on this trail project.
Trail work aside, I have to mention that lunch turned into an excellent affair that included sandwiches and goodies provided by the San Mateo Parks Foundation. Thank you to the contributors and volunteers that delivered the lunch to the work area! Everyone thoroughly enjoy it. Some nice congratulatory words were given by Trail Center President Judd Volino and San Mateo city supervisor Sheila XXX.
Thanks as always to all the background support from Judd to help organize the work day, Kathy for her expert coordinating, Larry for refreshments, and all the crew leaders and crew leader trainees for making sure the volunteers were taken care of and worked safely, and for ensuring expert trail was constructed. Thanks also to San Mateo City Parks for procuring and delivering all the supplies needed for the retaining wall.
Dave Croker
July 3, 2018