Help Protect Missouri Bar and Humbug Trails

SPI hopes to log an area near the South Yuba River. Regardless of your feelings about such things, trails in the vicinity need to be preserved. Too many times in my nine years in Nevada County, I have seen commercial logging outfits totally trash trails and walk away from the carnage. Please consider submitting the following sample letter (or something like it):

California Department of Forestry/Calfire
Resource Management
6105 Airport Road
Redding, CA 96002
fax 530-224-4841

reddingpubliccomment@fire.ca.gov

RE: Buck Timber Harvest Plan, THP # 2-07-092-NEV(3)

To whom it may concern,

As an avid trail user, I know that the Missouri Bar and Humbug trails are important historic paths that are used extensively by our community. They provide access to beautiful public lands that area residents enjoy throughout the year. I am concerned that if implemented, the aforementioned timber harvest plan could significantly damage these trails. Therefore I ask that the CDF act carefully when considering approval of any such operation. Specifically:

• The plan needs to ensure that any operation associated with the plan leaves the trails untouched. It is not acceptable to damage culturally significant trails and attempt remediation afterwards. These trails need to be preserved in their exact state, regardless of the cost and inconvenience to the logging plan proponent.
• The plan needs to address precisely how it will pro-actively avoid any impact to area trails (including the South Yuba Trail) that could be caused by nearby logging operations, runoff, etc.

The area in question is not an obscure, remote hillside, but instead a natural endowment cherished by the community. Residents access this beloved area via these trails and it is the CDF's responsibility to safeguard these priceless cultural resources.

Truly,
YOUR NAME GOES HERE

Ride and Hike - National Trails Day

Ride and hike with your fellow trail users and celebrate Nevada County trails! As part of the local National Trails Day celebration, the Nevada County Land Trust is leading a bunch of trail events on Saturday, June 7th.

BONC will lead two rides (advanced and beginner) on Saturday, June 7th. Meet at 10AM at Rood Center to carpool to the trailhead. Afterwards, riders will enjoy BONC-provided snacks and drinks. No need to register, just show up and ride.

Burlington Ridge Trails Open

From Joe Chavez of the USFS:

"FYI - The helicopter is done logging. Therefore, the Burlington Trail
Closure has been terminated as of today! Enjoy! Joe"

CANCELLED: Bullard's Trailwork - 6/10

This event is now CANCELED. We will try and reschedule as soon as possible. If you know someone who wanted to attend, but does not read email regularly, please let them know.

Sorry for the late notice. The USFS just informed me. Long story.

Less Rash

If you find less poison oak on the South Yuba Trail in the next week or so, please thank Mike Haire, Dave Hughes, Tom-of-Sacramento, Rich Strohl and George Maire.

They are trimming the nasty stuff away for the rest of us, partly in preparation for the Big Brothers Big Sisters ride. My skin thanks you.

New Trail to Hirschman Pond

From Bill Haire:

"On Saturday, May 17, I will need the help of ten or so volunteers to
brush out the trail to Hirschman Pond from Cement Hill Road, across
from the County Government Center (Rood Center). We will be preparing a path from the planned trailhead to the pond along the trail route."

Want to help out? Call Bill Haire at the Land Trust: 530.272.5994

Individual Trail Work

This year, I've seen a great trend happening on local trails: individuals or small groups of volunteers doing trail work independently. These folks are not waiting for someone else to schedule a big group trail event, but instead forge ahead with smaller projects on a more frequent basis. Of course, this needs to be done with land manager permission, but it represents a great means of accomplishing more on the local trails we all love and use.

The latest example involve the finest efforts of Dave Hughes, Mike Haire and Tom-of-Sacramento (sorry Tom, but I don't know your last name). On Saturday, these three heroes headed down the Missouri Bar and South Yuba trails. They improved sections, trimmed back overgrowth and took out some downed trees that had forced trail users off trail. These guys put in EIGHT HOURS of work! Please thank them the next time you see them around town.

As you may know, for years I've encouraged trail users to carry smaller tools during rides/hikes. A few minutes trimming and sawing here and there collectively makes a big difference. For example, I've taken out lots of overgrowth on Osborne Hill near my house over the winter during hikes with my dogs. My tools of choice are hand clippers, a folding saw and these incredibly light, powerful loppers that fit in my Camelbak.

Then again, if you dig the camaraderie, fun and free beer offered by group trail work days, there is a Bullard's Bar trail event on Saturday, May 10th.

Bullard's Trail Day - 5/10

Join us for a trailwork day on Saturday, May 10th at Bullard's Bar. Meet at 9AM @ the USFS Yuba River Ranger Station at the corner of Highway 49 and Marysville Road. Map.

We will work to improve BONC-adopted trails in the area. We will also lead a group of college students who have volunteered to pitch in. Please bring gloves, long pants and shirts, water and insect repellent. See you there!

Trailwork Near Lone Grave

From the Gold Country Trails Council:

There will be a club-sponsored BBQ after the trail work day! A great time for trail volunteers to socialize and get to know one another!

When? Saturday, April 26, 2008

Time? Meet at the Gold Country Equestrian Trailhead staging area (off of Conservation Road off of Highway 20) at 8:45 a.m. Be ready to carpool to the work locations. Work will be completed in approximately 3 hours.

Why? We will be providing general trail maintenance on local trails.

Please bring rakes, shovels, loppers and handsaws. GCTC will provide additional trail tools. Please bring a chair and drinking water. Per Forest Service requirements, long sleeve shirts and pants and close-toed shoes are required; please wear gloves. If you're planning on attending, please call Willie and Sue Brusin at 530.265.4018.

Haire-o-thon!

Bill and Mike Haire have cut in an entire section of the Loma Rica Trail. If you drive by, this trail is just below eyesight on the north side of Brunswick Road near the Nevada County Horseman's area entrance. Plans for a bridge over Wolf Creek are moving along.

See a map of the entire proposed trail (PDF).

Please thank Bill and Mike if you see them. Mike spent a big chunk of his vacation time building this new trail for everybody.

Prescribed Burns @ Bullard's

From the USFS:

"The U.S. Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest, Yuba River Ranger District is planning to start the Bullards Bar Prescribed Fire Project today. This project includes approximately 70 acres of underburning at Vista Point, north of Marysville Road, in Yuba County.

Dependent upon favorable weather and air quality conditions, the district hopes to complete the project this spring. Goals include reducing hazardous fuels, habitat improvement, and reintroducing fire as a natural ecological process.

The legal locations for the project are T18N, R7E, sections 24. If you have any questions about this project please contact Mike Cherry, District Fire Management Officer or Janet Cowell, District Fuels Officer at 530-288-3231."

Iron Mike

Yesterday afternoon, while driving my kids to back from school, I passed Mike Haire as toiled away on the new Loma Rica Trail off Brunswick Road. There he was all alone, digging away with his Pulaski, forging a new trail for the rest of us.

I hurled some insults at him as I drove by, but he was oblivious to my harrassment. Mike did all this work after he rode the Missouri Bar/South Yuba loop, as he related in an email. So he put in 17+ miles of riding and 2.5 hours of solo trailwork in one day. Henceforth, Metal Mile will be known as Iron Mike.

BTW, Iron Mike tells us that the poison oak is prevalent on the South Yuba/Missouri Bar Trails. This matches my experience on local trails of late.

Loma Rica Trail

Some new trail construction garners a lot of attention, while others progress quietly along. The latter best describes the Loma Rica trail project. Bill and Mike Haire have worked hard on this new trail and are making steady progress.

The proposed version of this trail (pdf map) would connect Empire Mine to Brunswick Basin along the Brunswick Road corridor. In effect, this connects trails from near downtown Grass Valley (Memorial Park) all the way to Town Talk Road.

Bill and Mike could use some additional volunteers. Call Bill at the Nevada County Land Trust: 530.272.5997.

Empire Mine Trails Update

If you are like me, you miss the trails that have been temporarily closed at Empire Mine SHP. The good news is that State Parks plans to open new and better singletrack in the park (imagine that). I checked in with Superintendent Ron Munson and this is what he had to say:

"Cultural survey work for the Osborn Trails Mitigated Neg. Dec.(MND) has been completed by Sonoma State Univ. Spring biological surveys are in progress right now by our own N. Service Center staff. So the CEQA review process is on track, and we still expect to begin the implementation of the Osborn trail reroutes and upgrades this fall (Oct?), in keeping with proposals generated from our public meeting."

Basically this means that we will can hope to see some trail openings toward the end of this year or early next year. Of course, you should add alway add six months to my optimistic estimates :-)

Epic Event: Donner Lake Rim Trail

A Donner Lake Rim Trail epic-like celebration is planned for the weekend of August 8th through 10th. BONC will join FATRAC, ROMP, Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (MBOSC) and others as we participate in a bunch of fantastic riding and build another sweet section of the Donner Lake Rim Trail.

Please mark your calendars, as this will be a great weekend of fun. Cost is free, more details coming. I've reserved group camp sites for BONC at Donner Memorial State Park.

IMBA Trail Care Crew Coming

The IMBA Trail Care Crew will visit Grass Valley and Nevada City on November 22-23. The visit will focus on one or more of the following:

Diamond Arrow Trail
Hirschman's Pond
Miner's Trail

If you have not participated in a Trail Care Crew event, they are super fun and rewarding. Please mark your calendar or use the Nevada County Cyclists Calendar.

More from the Tahoe National Forest

From Joe Chavez:

"Due to scheduled helicopter logging activity along and adjacent to the South Yuba Canal near the Burlington trail system, the Forest Service will be implementing a Forest Order to close the area 300 feet south of highway 20 and south of the 20-12 Road (Burlington Ridge Road).

The logging needs to happen during the scheduled dewatering of the canal starting April 14. The closure would be scheduled from April 14, 2008 through June 1, 2008. It is hoped that the need for the closure will only be three weeks, but the extra time is added just in case don't go as planned. Because of the need to complete the activity in three weeks, and due to the costs involved, the loggers will be working seven days a week. As soon as the helicopter
logging is done, the closure order will be lifted. The Memorial Day recreation event will still happen, regardless of their schedule, as we will require them not to fly during the days of the event (if they are still in the area by then).

I know this will be extremely inconvenient as the trails will just be opening up at that time. But, I hope that you can understand the safety need to not allow people to be underneath flying logs and falling limbs. The helicopters will be all over the place when they start the logging. The Pioneer Trail, Hallelujah Trail and Omega trail east of the staging area (can access the Steephallow area north of Highway 20) will remain available and open. Sorry about this inconvenience. Joe"

Downieville Shuttles

There is some controversy as to Downieville shuttle usage and new USFS fees. Joe Chavez of the Tahoe National Forest wrote me this morning and had this to say:

"Certainly the discussion is distorted. The reality is that in 2004 the Forest Service, nation wide, has changed its regulations to close the loophole that commercial businesses used to run shuttles and guiding when they only used Forest Service roads or trails, without having to be under permit. Now these commercial operations, like all other commercial operations using National Forest Lands, are also required to be under permit. We are not curtailing their business, in fact I have asked each shop to give me their past numbers over the last six years to set the capacity of shuttles to Pack Saddle at a level that reflects their highest use year's numbers. They would be required to pay a fee of 3% of their gross ($0.45 added to a shuttle fee of $15, or $1.80 added to a bike rental of $60) for the permit. This is part of the national policy that all commercial users benefiting from use of the National Forest must pay a fee.

There is nothing personal about putting the two shops under permit, it is our national policy. Based on user conflicts and trail impacts, the Forest Service would have the option to restrict their use numbers, but we are not proposing this because we do understand the importance of this economic engine to Downieville. The Forest Service also requires being additionally insured to protect the public's liability. Other areas, like the Forest Service in Moab, implemented the permit requirement back in 2004.

Appreciate any objectivity and reality you can shed on the issue with the community, thanks. Joe"

Killer Trailwork on Round Mountain

Yesterday was a great day for BONC. On the Rock Creek Flume Trail, we built fantastic re-routes that will be hella fun to ride, restored a masticated section, built up some erosion control features and completed it all in one outing. All on a gorgeous 60+ degree sunny day.

The re-routes involved blazing through lots of manzanita with chainsaws and hand tools, cutting new trail and building Zachi's extremely cool bermed switchbacks. The singletrack restoration up above was about clearing debris and restoring the trail. I thank all of the 12 volunteers who showed up and you should too. I am as proud of this project as any trailwork I've done with this club. In fact, after the trailwork, I drove back out to Round Mountain again to show Shannon our work and take pictures.

The new sections will be a bit loose and duffy until we see some wet weather, so please ride gently.

Big thanks to:

The Salvation Army, who allowed this project to occur on their private property.
Hyland Fisher, who coordinated with the SA.
Bill Haire, who plotted the re-routes.

Reroutes

Yesterday, Hyland and I met with management of the Camp Del Oro, which owns some of the land on which the Rock Creek Flume Trail crosses. We agreed to re-route two sections near the trailhead on Rector Road. One is just above the road and the other is a deeply rutted section a hundred yards or so above the first section. This work will make these sections more fun to ride and much more sustainable. We'll also clear a section of the trail of debris from a recent thinning operation.

Meet at the Forest Service office at 631 Coyote Street, Nevada City, at 10:00 am. If you have loppers or folding saws, please bring them.