Mazama Trail logout FINAL UPDATE
Posted: July 12th, 2021, 4:32 pm
As many of you know, OK, all of you, the Labor Day windstorm last year was a doozy. The Mazamas had just cleared the Mazama trail in mid-August only to have 97 more trees come down in one day. A joint trip between of few of us and a USFS fire crew managed to get a third of them cleared out in October. This included an intimidating section of jackstrawed and elevated problems.
I knew the usual winter damage would add to our count and we were up to 112 in mid-June this year, not counting what I couldn't see under the snow above about 4800'. Some preliminary work has already been done and I hope to report back here next week that the trail is all clear. Likely, it will be more like "mostly clear", but I'll let you know.
Update: The tree count of 112 was revised to 150 after scouting the upper mile of trail previously hidden by snow. Arrgghhh. Between the work done on the initial scouting, then a small private party trip, and finally our recent three day effort, we are now down to 40 logs. There is one tangle of green trees at about 3.2 miles in that will likely not be removed due to complexity, but a very short bypass has been flagged around the east side, brush free too! The first mile of trail has been fully groomed, the rest is in decent shape other than a few sections of logs to step over. We'll try to finish it off before the hiking season is totally gone.
As of August 30, the trail is log free bottom to top minus the afore-mentioned tangle that is by passable. Tread, drains and brushing is 70% done and after 12 days on the trail this will likely remain that way. I think I have a trail Rx hangover. But it was fun working with a diverse group of newbies and seasoned veterans this year.
I knew the usual winter damage would add to our count and we were up to 112 in mid-June this year, not counting what I couldn't see under the snow above about 4800'. Some preliminary work has already been done and I hope to report back here next week that the trail is all clear. Likely, it will be more like "mostly clear", but I'll let you know.
Update: The tree count of 112 was revised to 150 after scouting the upper mile of trail previously hidden by snow. Arrgghhh. Between the work done on the initial scouting, then a small private party trip, and finally our recent three day effort, we are now down to 40 logs. There is one tangle of green trees at about 3.2 miles in that will likely not be removed due to complexity, but a very short bypass has been flagged around the east side, brush free too! The first mile of trail has been fully groomed, the rest is in decent shape other than a few sections of logs to step over. We'll try to finish it off before the hiking season is totally gone.
As of August 30, the trail is log free bottom to top minus the afore-mentioned tangle that is by passable. Tread, drains and brushing is 70% done and after 12 days on the trail this will likely remain that way. I think I have a trail Rx hangover. But it was fun working with a diverse group of newbies and seasoned veterans this year.
