By John Roberts

[republished with permission from The Buzz of the BTCEB]

BTCEB [Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay] is helping develop trail work safety practices.  This is in collaboration with the Piedmont High School (PHS) Mountain Bike Team at Joaquin Miller Park (JMP). The focus is learning, more so than the work performed.  Visualizing the initial step is easy, it involves basic social distancing.  But actual trail work efforts can zap this concept.  That is why additional risk mitigation practices were implemented from the ‘get go’.  

Initially the volunteers participated in a live one-hour online class.  In addition, youth athletes as well as their coaches were kept to their riding pods of less than 10 volunteers each. This meant that each individual pod was assigned distinct work days. In turn, the individuals in each pod were broken up into work pairs. The purpose of the two-person teams was for one athlete to supervise trail traffic, while their partner worked.  Not only did this allow for the students to better focus on the quality of their trail work, it also kept one volunteer as a “sentinel” to focus on park visitor traffic, possible working partner hazards, and independent quality control.  For example, when the “monitoring” partners see a park user approaching on the trail, they yell “hiker”, “biker”, or “dog walker”.  This serves as notification to the park user that they can pass, and as appropriate, work is also eased and a focus on social distancing protocols is emphasized. This approach also increases the quality of work as it enhances onsite learning and balances work through alternating partner breaks.

In this manner, the PHS work pods worked on the Big Trees, the Sequoia Bayview, and the Horse Arena connector trails’ drainage via duff removal and ensured these trails have virtually no puddles after the next rain.  This helps keep singletrack narrow, safer, and more sustainable as water will no longer be splashed down trail.  During March, yet another PHS pod provided maintenance to the JMP pump track.  Park users consistently thanked the PHS youth as they went by the work sites.  Accordingly, thank you to all the great stewards that contributed towards this successful trail maintenance effort.  With increased COVID-related trail use, JMP greatly needed the care.

Thirty-five volunteers showed up to begin the construction phase of the new Sunset Trail reroute on our May 25th work day. With the sun out, but still nippy, it was the perfect day for trail work.
Project supervisor Nat Lope of Hilride demonstrates a fire-line inspired trail building technique.

We began the day enjoying French pastries provided by FOJMP board member Stan Dodson of the Dimond La Farine Bakery before we headed out to the work site.

In a battle of man versus bay stump, a group began the excavation of a huge stump at the bottom of the reroute.

Others paired up and began hauling more railroad ties up from the meadow…

…while the majority lined up with Pulaski and McLeod tools to cut the bench.

The group broke for BBQ chicken and salads at mid-day, prepared by BTCEB Trails Director, Dave Cowley, before returning to the hill for the afternoon session.

At day’s end, with the majority of the bench cut, the new trail was visibly flowing down the hill.

By late afternoon, the exhausted group returned to the meadow for snacks and cold beverages.

The next construction date is scheduled on June 15th, when we’ll begin construction of the two switchbacks, build a couple retaining walls, and start the gateways on Sunset and Sequoia Bayview. We’ll meet at 8:30 a.m. at the Ranger Station. Plan on a two-hour morning session, break for coffee, juice, fruit, and pastries on the hill, and be done around 1:00 or so when we’ll head down to the meadow for lunch and beverages and where we’ll call it a day.

Parties interested in helping can signup on the BTCEB MeetUp group. If you have any questions drop Brent a note.

Thanks to Chef Dave for his most excellent BBQ, BTCEB’s Henry Mitchell, Mike Udkow, and Daniel Perkins for bringing in the railroad ties and helping with all the preproduction, Gary and Stan from the Dimond La Farine bakery for the incomparable treats in the morning, and of course Park Supervisor Martin Mataresse who made the entire project possible!

Also thanks to Jason Van Horn for some really nice photos. Check out Jason’s  Bermstyle site for more images of the day.

We are rerouting a section of Sunset Trail to connect the upper and lower sections of the park with a more sustainable and user friendly trail. Sunset currently lies in the creek bed of Palo Seco Creek, is over 12′ wide, and substantially over grade. This is one of the coolest projects in the park and planned both to provide the best possible experience for trail users and protect the environment through sustainable design.

The first workday on May 11th went really great. Thanks for everyone that turned out! We had around 15 people and started the day by moving 20+ railroad ties from the meadow up to the work site.

Once that was complete, we began the vegetation removal, digging up ferns & soup plant bulbs and Sticky monkey-flower.

We potted the plants and transported them down to the park nursery where we gave them a good soaking before leaving them in the capable hands of our friends at FOSC.

We also cut a scratch line along the route to give everyone a solid idea of where our bench cut will be.

At the end of the day we were back at the Ranger Station for cold drinks and socializing.

We’ll be back on May 25th when the real fun begins with the bench cut and construction of the two switchbacks.  Get involved and sign up for the next work day on the 25th!

A few of us from The Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay went out to the park to do a small reroute on Palos Colorados (PC). A large pine had came down across Sunset Trail and landed on PC (and Sinawik) not far from the Stone Bridge. Oakland Parks Supervisor, Martin, had cut the trunks back a few days earlier, opening up a new alignment and leaving a ton of logs and debris across the old trail.

The old trail was underneath all this tree canopy and was a large dip into the creek (to the left) straight from this point to Daniel (in the orange).

The new alignment is higher up along the contour of the bank, instead of down in the creek.

The heavy clay soil formed up pretty well as we benched the new trail. Conditions were still a little wet, and the clay sticky, but the trail quickly took shape.

The new alignment keeps people out of the creek and helps slow riders down on the blind turns on each side of the reroute.

We then piled up bay tree branches along the edge of the trail (which we hacked off the bay that come down with the pine) to discourage people from venturing into the creek.