Hi all,
Some of those interested in forming a non-profit organization devoted to advocacy of environmental issues in and around the North Fork American, met at the Dutch Flat Community Club on Monday evening. Thanks to some diligent telephone tag on the part of Catherine O’Riley, we expected seven people to attend, but were pleasantly surprised when fourteen people arrived.
Jim Ricker of Dutch Flat ably presided over the meeting. He astounded me by bringing along a folder containing his notes of the meeting we held in March of 2000, at Bob & Judy Suter’s house, in which we discussed forming a non-profit organization. Susan Prince of Dutch Flat used an amazing little folding keyboard attached to a Palm minicomputer to take notes.
I had envisioned reading aloud the text of six emails received from people interested in forming a non-profit, but unable to attend the meeting, but the opportunity never seemed to arise. Thanks nevertheless to those who offered support and suggestions, notably Michael McCormack, Tim Lasko, Tom McDonnell, Michael Joyce, Bill Newsom, and Evan Jones. Catherine and Jim did take the time to read these emails, at any rate.
Having established that those present were all in favor of forming an organization, and moreover a non-profit organization, we moved on to the initial issues of, first, what should the name be, and second, what should the “mission statement” of the organization be. We did little more than chalk up some possibilities on the old blackboard (the DF Community Club is the old DF school, which dates to 1898).
We scheduled another meeting for early May, on Monday the 6th, I believe. Suggestions as to a name are welcome. Since we intend to defend the wildness and beauty of the North Fork of the American river, the name should reference that. Immediately we have quite a mouthful of words and syllables. Hence a name which lends itself to a good acronym is desired; much as the group “Protect the American River Canyons” has the acronym “PARC” which of course sounds like “park.”
Incidentally, from an historic viewpoint, the phrase “American River Canyon” was taken to apply *only* to the North Fork canyon, *not* to any other branch of the American river. However, this point has been muddled over the course of time, and nowadays one often finds other forks of the American denoted as *the* American River Canyon. All this is only to say that a name which includes the phrase “American River Canyon” is susceptible to misinterpretation on the one hand, and confusion with PARC on the other.
The meeting went very well. Thanks to all who attended, and all who sent emails.
Cheers,
[The blog post above was extracted from an archive of Russell's emails to his "North Fork Trails" email distribution list.
Posted by Richard L. Towle (Russell's brother)]
Showing posts with label Email Archive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Email Archive. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Saturday, February 23, 2002
Email Archive: Copter in Canyon Creek
Hi all,
The day dawned so clear and warm that I felt impelled to visit Canyon Creek. Around eight I stepped out the door and saw my dog, an Australian Shepherd named Lucky, lying sadly in the morning sun. Lucky should have about a thousand sheep under his direct supervision, but instead, languishes with nothing to do, in an unending fit of boredom, broken only by the occasional digging of a boulder of andesite from the hillside here, which he then proceeds to herd down to and over the cliffs below, with great yelps and snorts of triumph.
I told him, "Get ready, we're heading out. Time for an adventure!" Then I got my second cup of coffee and threw my camera, loppers, GPS unit and handsaw into my pack. I debated calling a friend to invite along for a hike. Jim & Heidi Johnson? Not a chance. A perpetual round of home improvement there. Joel Baiocchi? Home improvement. Jim Ricker? Knees. Bob & Judy Suter? Always busy. The renowned Judge Sims? Scared of heights. The renowned Judge Newsom? Attacked by a wild pig in Italy long ago, feet never the same. Catherine O'Riley? Engaged. Instead, I called an old friend in the Bay Area; the line was busy. Now that the Fates themselves had confirmed that telephone calls were simply out of order, I stepped outside. Lucky had divined my intentions and began leaping for joy, yelping, rolling on the ground, dashing up the steps, etc. etc. I fired up the battered old Toyota pickup and made my way to Gold Run, and through the tortuous turns and mudholes which count for a road into the diggings.
I parked in Potato Ravine Pass and dragged the shovel and mattock from the truck. On the way in, I would dig out some manzanita stumps from the line of the trail, in that uppermost portion I have been slowly restoring over this winter. A salvage timber harvest, following a wildfire in 1960, had ruined this part of the trail, and adding insult to this ruination, a heavy crop of manzanita had flourished and thickened over the past forty years. Having cut a swath through this manzanita, it remained to clear the stumps from the trail.
So I set the pack down, put on my gloves, and got to work. A mattock is a tool like a pickax, but heavier, with one blade like an axe, and one like an adze. Mine is ancient. It is good for cutting roots. I dug up three stumps and filled the holes with good clean clay and rock fill quarried shovelful by shovelful a few yards away. Then the pack went on, the heavy tools were left behind, and it was on down the trail. I noticed with some consternation that many other manzanita stumps remained to be dug out.
In a few minutes I was passing the huge tunnel of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company, made in 1873. In another few minutes I reached the bridge, with its now severely delaminating plywood. This must be fixed soon. The creek was running high and clear after the recent heavy rains and with the warm day cooking the thin snowpack persisting in the upper basin of Canyon Creek. I reached the first waterfall vista point and took a break. I made some short QuickTime movies of the waterfall with my camera.
I did not intend to go all the way to the river, only to Gorge Point, which has a very warm microclimate and has good early blooms of various flower species. However, I passed the point without seeing any flowers and stopped at the Rockslide, where a short reach of the trail had been destroyed, who knows how long ago. I parked the pack and started climbing up and down the ruined section, trying to imagine how it could be repaired, what the optimal line of the restored trail would be, and so on. Descending to the base of the ruined section, I began working on a short stretch down there. For an hour or so I heaved boulders around and tried to rebuild this little part of the trail. With the help of gravity, some 200-pound-plus boulders were brought into play, and a little progress was made. Then I worked for a while on another little section, trying to make stone steps.
I have this silly idea of making this part of the trail like some mountain trails in China, in Szechuan Province, where truly massive flat rocks weighing hundreds of pounds are used as stair steps over long distances. There are some rocks of this magnitude in the rock slide area. Today, however, I was mostly working with small stuff.
The sun was beating down and I was sweating. I decided to start back up, but paused at Gorge Point, where there was a nice patch of shade close by the cliff, as the sun passed the meridian. Having stopped there I realized that two species were indeed in bloom, the Carrot family's Biscuit Root and the Mustard family's Rock Cress. I took some pictures and then packed up again. As I started up the trail I heard the sound of a helicopter. It grew loud then faded away. I could not see it.
A few yards up the trail I heard it again, loud, and looking down the creek I saw it, rising right into the narrow gorge at Gorge Point. It apparently had flown right up past the Big Waterfall, and if its position when I first saw it was any indication, it would have been so close to the falls its windshield should have been wetted by the spray. I swung the camera up and took a few pictures. It flew directly up the creek, and the pilot peered down at me as he passed, only a hundred feet away or so. Illegally low, I think. I waved.
When I reached my mattock and shovel I stopped for some more stump digging. The morning stumps were easy, the afternoon stumps were hard, very hard, and took many many swings of the heavy mattock. In fact, I had to split the stumps into sections and then attack the roots of each section in turn. Another three stumps came out. I was exhausted, thrashed in fact, not from the hiking, not from the boulder work, but from that mattock.
Such was a day on the upper half of the Canyon Creek Trail.
[The blog post above was extracted from an archive of Russell's emails to his "North Fork Trails" email distribution list.
Posted by Richard L. Towle (Russell's brother)]
The day dawned so clear and warm that I felt impelled to visit Canyon Creek. Around eight I stepped out the door and saw my dog, an Australian Shepherd named Lucky, lying sadly in the morning sun. Lucky should have about a thousand sheep under his direct supervision, but instead, languishes with nothing to do, in an unending fit of boredom, broken only by the occasional digging of a boulder of andesite from the hillside here, which he then proceeds to herd down to and over the cliffs below, with great yelps and snorts of triumph.
I told him, "Get ready, we're heading out. Time for an adventure!" Then I got my second cup of coffee and threw my camera, loppers, GPS unit and handsaw into my pack. I debated calling a friend to invite along for a hike. Jim & Heidi Johnson? Not a chance. A perpetual round of home improvement there. Joel Baiocchi? Home improvement. Jim Ricker? Knees. Bob & Judy Suter? Always busy. The renowned Judge Sims? Scared of heights. The renowned Judge Newsom? Attacked by a wild pig in Italy long ago, feet never the same. Catherine O'Riley? Engaged. Instead, I called an old friend in the Bay Area; the line was busy. Now that the Fates themselves had confirmed that telephone calls were simply out of order, I stepped outside. Lucky had divined my intentions and began leaping for joy, yelping, rolling on the ground, dashing up the steps, etc. etc. I fired up the battered old Toyota pickup and made my way to Gold Run, and through the tortuous turns and mudholes which count for a road into the diggings.
I parked in Potato Ravine Pass and dragged the shovel and mattock from the truck. On the way in, I would dig out some manzanita stumps from the line of the trail, in that uppermost portion I have been slowly restoring over this winter. A salvage timber harvest, following a wildfire in 1960, had ruined this part of the trail, and adding insult to this ruination, a heavy crop of manzanita had flourished and thickened over the past forty years. Having cut a swath through this manzanita, it remained to clear the stumps from the trail.
So I set the pack down, put on my gloves, and got to work. A mattock is a tool like a pickax, but heavier, with one blade like an axe, and one like an adze. Mine is ancient. It is good for cutting roots. I dug up three stumps and filled the holes with good clean clay and rock fill quarried shovelful by shovelful a few yards away. Then the pack went on, the heavy tools were left behind, and it was on down the trail. I noticed with some consternation that many other manzanita stumps remained to be dug out.
In a few minutes I was passing the huge tunnel of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company, made in 1873. In another few minutes I reached the bridge, with its now severely delaminating plywood. This must be fixed soon. The creek was running high and clear after the recent heavy rains and with the warm day cooking the thin snowpack persisting in the upper basin of Canyon Creek. I reached the first waterfall vista point and took a break. I made some short QuickTime movies of the waterfall with my camera.
I did not intend to go all the way to the river, only to Gorge Point, which has a very warm microclimate and has good early blooms of various flower species. However, I passed the point without seeing any flowers and stopped at the Rockslide, where a short reach of the trail had been destroyed, who knows how long ago. I parked the pack and started climbing up and down the ruined section, trying to imagine how it could be repaired, what the optimal line of the restored trail would be, and so on. Descending to the base of the ruined section, I began working on a short stretch down there. For an hour or so I heaved boulders around and tried to rebuild this little part of the trail. With the help of gravity, some 200-pound-plus boulders were brought into play, and a little progress was made. Then I worked for a while on another little section, trying to make stone steps.
I have this silly idea of making this part of the trail like some mountain trails in China, in Szechuan Province, where truly massive flat rocks weighing hundreds of pounds are used as stair steps over long distances. There are some rocks of this magnitude in the rock slide area. Today, however, I was mostly working with small stuff.
The sun was beating down and I was sweating. I decided to start back up, but paused at Gorge Point, where there was a nice patch of shade close by the cliff, as the sun passed the meridian. Having stopped there I realized that two species were indeed in bloom, the Carrot family's Biscuit Root and the Mustard family's Rock Cress. I took some pictures and then packed up again. As I started up the trail I heard the sound of a helicopter. It grew loud then faded away. I could not see it.
A few yards up the trail I heard it again, loud, and looking down the creek I saw it, rising right into the narrow gorge at Gorge Point. It apparently had flown right up past the Big Waterfall, and if its position when I first saw it was any indication, it would have been so close to the falls its windshield should have been wetted by the spray. I swung the camera up and took a few pictures. It flew directly up the creek, and the pilot peered down at me as he passed, only a hundred feet away or so. Illegally low, I think. I waved.
When I reached my mattock and shovel I stopped for some more stump digging. The morning stumps were easy, the afternoon stumps were hard, very hard, and took many many swings of the heavy mattock. In fact, I had to split the stumps into sections and then attack the roots of each section in turn. Another three stumps came out. I was exhausted, thrashed in fact, not from the hiking, not from the boulder work, but from that mattock.
Such was a day on the upper half of the Canyon Creek Trail.
[The blog post above was extracted from an archive of Russell's emails to his "North Fork Trails" email distribution list.
Posted by Richard L. Towle (Russell's brother)]
Friday, June 30, 2000
Email Archive: Trail Easements
Hi all,
Dean Decker of the Folsom office of the BLM informed me a couple of weeks ago that the Stevens Trail and Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail both have public easements on them, as enacted by the Placer County Board of Supervisors. Subsequently I learned that Wendell T. Robie was one of the principal advocates of these easements. Decker was kind enough to supply the date and ordinance number for the two actions by the BOS. The BOS staff in Auburn sent me copies of the two ordinances.
The first ordinance, #301B of May 11, 1953, is a remarkable document. It lists dozens and dozens of trails and roads, referencing them to various U.S.G.S. maps pubished around the turn of the century. It often specifies section numbers and townships. Among the specified trails are the Donner Trail, the Green Valley Trail, the Stevens Trail, the Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail, and the China Trail from Lost Camp to Sawtooth Ridge. Copies of the maps were filed with this ordinance. The essence of this ordinance is that all the roads and trails shown on the U.S.G.S. maps specified, are declared public roads and trails, and that it is a misdemeanor to block or obstruct them in any way, save for an unlocked gate to limit ingress or egress of stock.
The second ordinance, #312B of January 11, 1954, (Section 1) repeals all of the first ordinance. It then proceeds to state (Section 2) that “All public trails, public hiking trails, public riding trails, public county trails and public roads situated in the County of Placer, State of California, are hereby declared to be County roads, and subject to the following herinafter provided rules and regulations for the use of said trails and roads.”
The sections that follow are almost identical to those concluding the first ordinance, forbidding the closure or obstruction of public roads and trails, except by unlocked gates for control of stock, and declaring it a misdemeanor to close or obstruct a public trail.
I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that by repealing all the specific language of the first ordinance, with its long list of trails referenced to historic maps, and only declaring that all public trails and roads are County roads, the BOS managed to sidestep the issue entirely. As much to say, it is not for the BOS to say what trail is or is not a “public” trail. That, apparently, is left for the courts.
So it would appear to me that there is no formal public easement on the Stevens Trail or on the Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail, or on any of the trails listed in the first ordinance. Too bad.
I wonder if any provision for public roads and trails was made in the legislation signed by Lincoln making the land grants to the CPRR. Since Robie (I presume) made his list of trails for the BOS in 1953, many of the historic trails have been blocked or obliterated by logging and road construction, both on Forest Service land and on the Southern Pacific railroad lands. Today the old railroads lands are mostly owned by Sierra Pacific Industries.
Other North Fork Trails news:
1. We haven’t heard anything from the Gold Run Properties people regarding possible purchase of the Canyon Creek Placer Mine.
2. A list of about fifteen trails, with descriptions, was sent to Supervisor Rex Bloomfield. Rex may be able to interest the Placer Legacy in land acquisition around some of these trails. We are starting to amass photographs of some of the trails and of the North Fork American Canyon, for a more polished presentation of our objectives in preserving and enhancing public access to these historic trails.
3. I need a good, 3 megapixel digital camera (Nikon 990, for instance) to help forward this work. I have all the tools to make PDF files and burn them onto CD’s for distribution to our elected representatives, and to organizations like the BLM, Placer Legacy, Trust for Pulic Land, Forest Service, etc. But I need a good digital camera.
Cheers,
[The blog post above was extracted from an archive of Russell's emails to his "North Fork Trails" email distribution list.
Posted by Richard L. Towle (Russell's brother)]
Dean Decker of the Folsom office of the BLM informed me a couple of weeks ago that the Stevens Trail and Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail both have public easements on them, as enacted by the Placer County Board of Supervisors. Subsequently I learned that Wendell T. Robie was one of the principal advocates of these easements. Decker was kind enough to supply the date and ordinance number for the two actions by the BOS. The BOS staff in Auburn sent me copies of the two ordinances.
The first ordinance, #301B of May 11, 1953, is a remarkable document. It lists dozens and dozens of trails and roads, referencing them to various U.S.G.S. maps pubished around the turn of the century. It often specifies section numbers and townships. Among the specified trails are the Donner Trail, the Green Valley Trail, the Stevens Trail, the Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail, and the China Trail from Lost Camp to Sawtooth Ridge. Copies of the maps were filed with this ordinance. The essence of this ordinance is that all the roads and trails shown on the U.S.G.S. maps specified, are declared public roads and trails, and that it is a misdemeanor to block or obstruct them in any way, save for an unlocked gate to limit ingress or egress of stock.
The second ordinance, #312B of January 11, 1954, (Section 1) repeals all of the first ordinance. It then proceeds to state (Section 2) that “All public trails, public hiking trails, public riding trails, public county trails and public roads situated in the County of Placer, State of California, are hereby declared to be County roads, and subject to the following herinafter provided rules and regulations for the use of said trails and roads.”
The sections that follow are almost identical to those concluding the first ordinance, forbidding the closure or obstruction of public roads and trails, except by unlocked gates for control of stock, and declaring it a misdemeanor to close or obstruct a public trail.
I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that by repealing all the specific language of the first ordinance, with its long list of trails referenced to historic maps, and only declaring that all public trails and roads are County roads, the BOS managed to sidestep the issue entirely. As much to say, it is not for the BOS to say what trail is or is not a “public” trail. That, apparently, is left for the courts.
So it would appear to me that there is no formal public easement on the Stevens Trail or on the Blue Wing/Fords Bar Trail, or on any of the trails listed in the first ordinance. Too bad.
I wonder if any provision for public roads and trails was made in the legislation signed by Lincoln making the land grants to the CPRR. Since Robie (I presume) made his list of trails for the BOS in 1953, many of the historic trails have been blocked or obliterated by logging and road construction, both on Forest Service land and on the Southern Pacific railroad lands. Today the old railroads lands are mostly owned by Sierra Pacific Industries.
Other North Fork Trails news:
1. We haven’t heard anything from the Gold Run Properties people regarding possible purchase of the Canyon Creek Placer Mine.
2. A list of about fifteen trails, with descriptions, was sent to Supervisor Rex Bloomfield. Rex may be able to interest the Placer Legacy in land acquisition around some of these trails. We are starting to amass photographs of some of the trails and of the North Fork American Canyon, for a more polished presentation of our objectives in preserving and enhancing public access to these historic trails.
3. I need a good, 3 megapixel digital camera (Nikon 990, for instance) to help forward this work. I have all the tools to make PDF files and burn them onto CD’s for distribution to our elected representatives, and to organizations like the BLM, Placer Legacy, Trust for Pulic Land, Forest Service, etc. But I need a good digital camera.
Cheers,
[The blog post above was extracted from an archive of Russell's emails to his "North Fork Trails" email distribution list.
Posted by Richard L. Towle (Russell's brother)]
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