Pick and shovel brigade

[balzaccom]

Yep, it's that time of year again, when the temperatures are a bit cooler, and the trail crews can get out and try to get things in order for next year--or at least next weekend.

This time I joined a team from the Mariposa Trails organization--wonderful bunch of people who not only worked hard, but also had some great conversations along the way. We had one team with a chain saw, taking out the trees that had fallen across the trail; another team with loppers that was cutting back the brush (manzanita, poison oak, gamble oaks, etc); and a third team using picks and shovels to re-route one section of trail and repair the tread to a horse-worthy level. I was on the pick and shovel detail.

The trail was along Skelton Creek, which still even had a trickle of water in it that was a nice background sound to the grunts and gasps of our team. But don't think it was all work, all day. We managed to make a quick side trip to a small cascade where a small tributary joins Skelton Creek, and we finished the day by tracking the trail down to the abandoned Blue Glory Mine.

It was a perfect day---weather was sunny but cool, the workers were cool, too. And we not only made some progress, we had a great time doing it.

The full photo log is here: photos.app.goo.gl/bEWWuM13DXgHPKF98

Mariposa Trails is here; mariposatrails.org/

[austex]

Thanks for you work on the trails; poison oak would preclude me! Also the picture of LeRoi brought a smile to my face as my father had an LeRoi air compressor at the So Cal airport where he ran his business to run a jack hammer. We referred to it as just "Baby Leroy"....

[balzaccom]

Luckily, we had one member who said she was immune to poison oak...so all of that work was delegated to her.