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| Volunteer | 7.50 Miles |
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| | Volunteer | 7.50 Miles | 2 Days | | |
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| no partners | | Six of us hiked down the Mt. Lemmon Rock Lookout Trail to the Wilderness of Rocks Trail/AZT Passage 12 Friday morning for the passage steward’s work event. The winter winds and rains made for a bunch of deadfall, and David, the steward, does a stellar job keeping this remote trail clear. We set up camp in the tall pine trees a short distance west of the junction, then split into two crews. The short-straw crew went west to Romero Pass and removed trees between there and the Mt. Lemmon Trail and we worked from the Mt. Lemmon Trail back to the Lemmon Rock Lookout Trail.
Day one was pretty typical sawyer work—the biggest log was probably 16-18 inches and not complicated. My crew got back to camp by 4:30 just in time for the temps to drop—I was in the tent way early to stay warm. The Romero Pass crew returned just after 7.
The first task on day two was a pinch-point between the hillside and a large boulder, with a flat rock slab in between. We’ve seen this many times but never had the crew and or energy to take it on. A few pry’s and tugs and the slab moved. A little digging loosened it, the pry bar helped and soon it slid off the trail.
The boulder, roughly 24 x 24 x 36, sat on end on the edge of the trail and looked like it should move, but three sets of legs between the hillside and the boulder only hinted that it might. A little pick work underneath and along the sides removing dirt and roots helped change the center of gravity, and the next push rolled it out and up against a small tree. Once that was cut out, the next push sent it down the hill. Very satisfying.
Then the real work began. When David left the rock project he said there were only 3 trees left. Great, we’ll be out by noon. I missed the part about them being 30+ inches in diameter and piled on top of each other up against truck-size boulders.
The bottom tree came down a couple years ago and completely blocked the trail. It was too big and too precariously balanced to be removed safely. The FS seriously considers explosives in cases like this. This winter another tree fell on top of the first, smashing it off its precarious perch, and further blocking the trail; now there were two “go around” routes, both steep and dangerous.
The first task was three cuts in the top tree and hoping gravity took each piece out of the way safely. With lots of thoughts towards safety, judicious application of the pry bar and all-hands pushing, the three pieces were down the hill and off the trail. But the first tree still blocked the original trail.
Much of cutting deadfall is how the tree lies and whether the tree being cut will fall away or compress back onto the saw. The last tree rested on each end, any cuts would pinch the saw. This is usually managed by pounding wedges into the cut to hold it open. In this case, the log had splintered when the top tree hit it, wedges wouldn’t work. That left a tedious task of cutting a little, chipping the splintered end off, cutting, chipping, etc. Slow going but successful.
Three hours later we’d used every tool we had except my jackknife, and invented a few sawyer techniques not taught in the certification class, but the trail was open! Then the slog up and out to Marshall Gulch TH. |
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Shawn
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see. |
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