Trail Day Report – 7/11

Well, it almost didn’t happen, but it turned out to be a great morning on the trail.

Hadn’t heard from anyone as of last night, but this morning I found an email from Brian Bassler. I scrambled to get a bucket of tools and head over. Brian, his son, and Larry Hodak were there, already scouting things out and picking up trash. Brian’s wife and daughters joined us soon after.

We all walked the trail together. Larry pointed out lots of different plants. Cathy and the girls gathered and scattered columbine seeds. We pulled some grape vines off some shrubs and tried to reroute them in new directions. The park crew had done a lot of trimming of grasses and other things overgrowing the trail and we opened a few spots that were missed or already regrown. In the middle of the trail, we found two huge (one 12″ and one bigger) branches fallen. Luckily landing just off the trail, cuz they’re too big to move without cutting into pieces. We cut some of the cow parsnip that was just ready for seed gathering and knocked a bunch of that seed around the area opened (to sun) by the falling.

We discovered at least two and perhaps as many as six areas where the park crew had sprayed herbicide to clear small patches, each not more than two square yards. When we scheduled this day, we thought we might have a chance to plant new patches of natives in these areas. Probably the crews will finish these up. If we can get some advanced notice, we might be able to get a few community members out there to do it. (see Trail Management Plan.)

We picked up what seemed like not too much trash along the way. Making a complete pass, south to north. Larry pointed out and named all kinds of flowers, shrubs, and trees along the way. On the walk back south we fixed as best we could a broken spot in the fence.

One woman stopped to say thanks. Turns out she lives in the condos nearby. Hoping to see her and her neighbors out at future trail days.

Total volunteers: 7. Total hours: 21.