Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Trail tenders
Volunteers hit the trails in Orange County to clean and maintain the routes for hikers and bikers.

By DAVE STREGE - The Orange County Register

"Rider up!" came the warning.

The work crew needed to step aside. Two mountain bikers were coming down the single-track trail called The Luge.

The workers didn't hesitate. They stopped shoveling and packing dirt and yielded to the riders.

The bikers, as is almost always the case, were appreciative not only of the workers giving way but for their rebuilding the way.

"Thanks for all the hard work," one biker said as he pedaled off.

The workers knew the sentiment was genuine. Being fellow mountain bikers, they, too, appreciate those who give back. On this recent Saturday morning, it was their turn.

They were volunteering four hours of labor to patch a popular mountain bike trail and, by so doing, helped kick off trail-maintenance season.

"We're re-contouring the trail to make hiking and biking much safer for ourselves and the community," Gregg Howard of Laguna Niguel said during a break. "If we don't do it, nobody does."

So each year between October and June, SHARE and the Warrior's Society mountain bike clubs, Sierra Club, Saddleback Valley Christian Mountain Bike Fellowship, Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy and several equestrian clubs are among the organizations that donate time tending to the trails they use.

Last year, more than 50 hardcore volunteers from the various clubs and many more one-timers from high school key clubs and corporations looking for service projects put in 3,956 hours of volunteer work on Orange County's trails.

That's the estimate from Jim Meyer, executive director of Trails4All, a nonprofit organization created from a need to organize the trail maintenance efforts in the early 1990s.

Back then, clubs such as SHARE were working on trails, but nobody knew what others were doing. So a meeting was held in August 1992 for all the area trail-using clubs.

Meyer, a member of SHARE, expected maybe six or eight people. But word spread and 46 attended, and an organized effort to coordinate the working parties began.

"By that time, it was apparent that the public agencies had no money and a very minimal staff, and nobody to take care of the trails," Meyer said. "If we didn't cut the brush or fix the ruts, the trails would go away. Nature would take them back."

Trails inside Whiting Ranch, Aliso-Wood Canyons, Laguna Coast Wilderness, Peter's Canyon, Santiago Oaks, O'Neill, Caspers, Riley, Chino Hills and Crystal Cove state, regional and wilderness parks and the Cleveland National Forest are maintained by volunteers.

Twenty-seven volunteers from four organizations gathered recently to work on The Luge, an offshoot from the Santiago Truck Trail in the Cleveland National Forest.

Runoff from the early rain had left deep ruts in several areas of the trail, and the volunteers filled those in. They also built numerous water bars or speed bumps, designed to divert water off the trail when it rains again.

"Water is the No.1 killer of the trail," said Grant Curtis, SHARE president.

Actually, rain is a blessing and a curse.

Sure, runoff can cause deep ruts in the trail, but those can be fixed, Meyer said. The blessing is the resultant moisture.

Trail maintenance is difficult to do when conditions are dry and the ground is as hard as rock. Rain loosens the ground to allow work to be done more easily.

After a couple of drought-like winters, Meyer was excited to see the early rain recently and the possibility of a productive winter and spring for trail work.

"We were out working last weekend, (and) you were able to do stuff you couldn't have done a month before the rains," Meyer said.

Volunteers show up with work gloves, hat, sunglasses and water, prepared to wield a McLeod tool - a rake-hoe combination - or a Pulaski tool - an axe-hoe combination - used by firefighters.

Hoes and shovels are also used. Cutters and clippers come into play when "brushing" the trail, which is another way of saying trimming back overgrown vegetation and/or poison oak.

On this day, most of the work was filling in ruts and preparing for the next rain.

At mid-morning, mountain biker Jim Stelter of Lake Forest stopped to admire the work volunteers were performing on the trail that empties out near Cook's Corner.

"We love them," Stelter said. "The fact people would put out the effort to do this, I think it's great. Obviously we're benefiting from this, so who can complain?"

Meyer isn't complaining, either, but he wouldn't mind seeing a few more helping hands. He said the trails could always use more volunteers.

"You just can't overstate how important volunteering is to keeping the trails open to the public," Meyer said



A McLeod tool — a rake-hoe combination — is used in the repair of trails.

THOMAS SULLENS, SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER



Among the volunteers who helped repair The Luge trail last weekend were, from left, Ed Testa, Bob Loeffler and Wayne Hermes.

THOMAS SULLENS, SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER