Trailblazers

Hacking a trail out of wilderness is not an easy job

Xavier Slevin smooths the forest floor along the Boulder Creek to Big Flat section of the Coast to Crest Trail. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

While walking those smooth paths that tame even steep country by following contours, it’s hard to imagine the work that goes into trailblazing.

It’s easy to forget that every inch of forest floor is covered in logs and brush, has thick roots, old stumps and rocks and generally is far from the nearest amenities.

Easy to forget, unless you’re part of the California Conservation Corps.

Crew members move debris on a flat section of trail. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

The CCC is currently filling in a section of the Coast to Crest trail, which will ultimately connect Crescent City to Yreka and follows paths created by Native Americans and re-created by Europeans long ago.

Three CCC crews from Fortuna have been working alternating eight-day stretches since Aug. 12 on the final seven miles from Boulder Creek to Big Flat needed to complete the 50-mile Coast to Crest Trail.

It is not easy work.

Because it’s a trail, every piece of gear has to be carried in by hand, and the longer the trail gets, the farther they have to be carried.

Crew boss Peter Luvaas said trails are actually not that complicated to plan for the most part.

But once switchbacks, creek crossings, and slide or erosion protections are mapped out, things get more complicated, said trail construction supervisor Clarke Moore.

“It’s really like digging a ditch, but on an incline and you have to get to the dirt first, at which point you realize it’s full of rocks and roots,” Luvaas said.

This unusual ditch digging was in full action Wednesday morning.

A crew of 13 CCC members was about a quarter-mile into a section of the Coast to Crest trail that runs over the ridge from Hurdygurdy Creek to Cant Hook Creek.

Spread out in a line of green and blue uniforms with different colored helmets depending on rank, crew members chopped at roots, packed embankments, and smoothed out the trail, removing anything that could disrupt a firm stable surface.

Crew boss Peter Luvaas pauses to reflect while carrying gas cans back for refilling. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

“This is nicer than some trails we’ve worked on,” said Luvaas. “It’s interesting going over a trail that was here before.”

The design phase of this section, when Moore and Pass were flagging the route it would take, took weeks of bushwhacking because the goal was to follow the original Kelsey Trail as closely as possible.

“I used the historical record and topo (topographical) maps to try to track the trail as closely as possible,” Moore said.

Because of that effort, the CCC crews are actually uncovering the past much of the time, following a ghost trail that sometimes bares its tracks across the steep slopes in cut banks and a faintly visible line of firm footing.

Xaviar Slevin, 22, has been with the CCC for over a year, and as he methodically scraped the trail surface down to dirt, he talked about how working outside made all the hard work worth it.

“I couldn’t have a desk job,” Slevin said. “This is a lot of work, but it keeps you in shape.”

Each rock used for making creek crossings, stairs or shoring up the side of the trail has to be transported in by wheelbarrow, and there is a ton of rock work all along the seven-mile section that the CCC crews are completing.

According to Rose Foundation project manager Kevin Hendrick, the trail crews have been averaging about a quarter-mile a week, depending on the terrain.

The Rose Foundation is funding the trail through an $846,000 grant from the California Resource Agency, and with the help of the Forest Service and California Conservation Corps, the trail should be finished next summer.

“We will still have some work to do,” Hendrick said. “We will still have to put up some trail and interpretive signs, but other than that it will be pretty much done.”

Trail designers Don Pass of the Forest Service and Clarke Moore survey the work. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)