Cholla Maintenance Report

[foofighter]

Thanks OMR, Jam R and a few other members of STR that came out to give us (me) a crash course in trail maintenance and preservation. I learned quite a bit today.

Anyway, what we ended up doing was working our way up Cholla and creating culverts to divert some of the runoff water off the trail and to some extent slow down the water. We also were able to narrow down the trail from 10+ feet wide down to something a bit more manageable as you'll see in the pics below.

After the I took the opportunity to go down the trail and then climbed it to see how it changed things both going up and going down. The trail narrowing kept my downhill trek more confined to the hard packed area and not run wide so the work we did paid off.

Tools of the trade:

The drainage diverting

Narrowing of the trail, we took some dried brush and placed them on the side of the trail to effectively narrow down the trail and to seed the soil underneath for the rainy season. Adam felt that if we did get more rain the seeds would take and by next spring new growth would take up and keep the trail narrow.

More drainage

Narrowing

The Chain Gang

OMR distributing dead vegetation to help narrow the trail down

Continued...

[foofighter]

The result...

Jam R (Adam) working hard


Keeping the riders on the hardpack



Discussion of a new trail bypass, just need the park's buyoff






And that's it!

[bluzrider]

much appreciated!!!!....great job guys!

[CPATCRASH]

Nice job guys! Wish I could have helped. Wife duty wins!

[Hanzo]

Thanks. Great job guys!

[JamR]

Nice job today guys!

With a little more rain and a few more work sessions we should be able to get Cholla back down to the single track it once was in its glory days.

Your hard work today had a three-fold benefit to the trail and the park.

1. Getting the trail back down to a narrow single track which is highly desired by many users.
2. Getting needed erosion control built back into the trail to help it be more sustainable.
3. Enhancing habitat by reducing the size of the trail. One of the turns we worked on narrowing up had grown to around 14' wide.

Hopefully we can get this trail back down to an average of 3 to 4 feet from top to bottom in a year or two.

It just takes good maintenance weather, hard work, time and patience.

Good times today

[OMR]

In addition to Foo (Duan) and Adam (Jam-R), we had Duke (OTHRIDER), Ken Rands (SHARE) and Steve (Autoduel) help out. Major props to Duke as he had over an hour drive to get to the trail and he's never been there before. Unfortunately we worked so long he didn't get to ride afterwards. We owe you one Duke!

After the trail work, Steve and I took off for a cruise through the park & ran into Steve the new park ranger and finally Ed (head ranger at the park) Although he was a bit upset at finding out after the fact that we had been doing trail work, he did like what we had done. Unfortunately, a few pieces of live sage had been pulled onto the trail to try and narrow the trail. Live coastal sage is a protected plant. I told him we had tired to pull only dead sage and branches onto the trail. I told him this had come up so suddently due to the rain that this was really a last minute thing. Next time, I'll email him when we are doing unscheduled trail work.

Cholla has gotten wider and wider due to riders and the soil washing out. We tried to narrow the trail to make it more of a 4-6 foot single track instead of a 8-10 foot highway it's become. We did not sanitize the trail at all but tried to improved water run-off to keep the natural erosion to the minimum. This work should pay off in the future with a narrower single track for us to ride up and down.

Thanks guys for all your hard work!

[Schecky]

Thanks guys!

[foofighter]

agreed Gregg, all the vegetation was deader than dead hope you didnt catch too much heat from the ranger Gregg.

[genusmtbkr5]

Great job guys. Wish I could've helped, but I was at Idyllwilde getting some of that rain. I'll have to get out and ride Cholla as soon as I get some recovery time. Oh BTW, Thanks for your hard work.

[CalEpic]

Thanks for the hard work guys. I'd be interested in future trail maintenance for my back yard trails. Be sure to post any events.

Is a bypass really necessary?

C

[dirthead]

thanks guys!!! it's good to see people caring enough to sacrafice some of their time to maintain trails, when one could be doing something else

[Pain Freak]

Excellent work, thanks guys.

And another use for STR jersey (workshirt).

[OTHRIDER]

Well, I sure learned a lot on Sunday. Adam is a human encyclopedia regarding the coastal scrub and the little creatures that live there.

Sorry if I pulled up some live (?) brush.

Listening to Gregg and Adam relive past trails was good for this newbie. "Adam, remember when we cut this little single track......" and so on. It helped to see the realingments of the past and get a clue as to why they might petition to re-route one section of Cholla.

Nice meeting you both, Duan and Steve

All in all a good day (and NO ticks!)

[Code Blue]

Originally Posted by OTHRIDER

Well, I sure learned a lot on Sunday. Adam is a human encyclopedia regarding the coastal scrub and the little creatures that live there.

Sorry if I pulled up some live (?) brush.

Listening to Gregg and Adam relive past trails was good for this newbie. "Adam, remember when we cut this little single track......" and so on. It helped to see the realingments of the past and get a clue as to why they might petition to re-route one section of Cholla.

Nice meeting you both, Duan and Steve

All in all a good day (and NO ticks!)

It has been awhile since I did any trail work. You guys have inspired me!

[Fired Yo Momma]

Guys great job! I don't have access to my computer on the weekends so I was not sure if anybody was going to do any trail maintenance. I really would have enjoyed going out their with you guys on Sat. On the next rain are you guys going back out? If so I am down to help I just need to know more in advance.