I heard from Rich Jenkins, CDF archeologist at Redding, today. He wrote: "... Visited the THP area two weeks ago. Plan still under review. Thanks for all of the provided information..... ."
Since the plan is still under review, I believe the public comment period is technically still open.
It is quite doubtful that any comments would substantially change things at this point, unless we found some weird hybrid of a Spotted Owl and some rare, endangered trout, and then, and only then, the OwlTrout would save the day.
590 acres of Placer County history is about to get hammered.
Thursday, September 4, 2003
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Big Bend-Devils Peak II
Friday Ron Gould and I returned to the problematic Big Bend-Devils Peak Trail. A few weeks ago we had followed it from Big Bend, climbing slowly east and south to a point south of Troy, on the railroad. We had found it intact, but overgrown, where it traversed Tahoe National Forest lands, and almost entirely obliterated by logging, but possible to follow, we thought, across Section 35 into Section 36.
This trail is on the 1962 TNF map of the Foresthill and Big Bend ranger districts.
On Friday we drove to near Kingvale and took the road south from near Donner Trail elementary school, which leads in to Devils Peak and Huntley Mill Lake. We parked just below the railroad, near a recent "No Trespassing" sign hung over the road by Sinnock Properties, a real estate company out of Grass Valley. Walking up and across the tracks, we soon reached a fork right and climbed 150 feet or so over a quarter mile to the plateau where we had ended our explorations last time.
From here we struck up the hill and south, aiming towards a certain pass between the broad shallow valley of the South Yuba and the deeps of the North Fork American, said pass containing Nancy Lake. The 1962 map shows the trail bending in and out of the ravine north of Nanccy Lake. We hoped to find some unlogged terrain and undisturbed stretches of trail. Ron scouted high and I scouted low as we traversed rocky slopes of glaciated granite, flanking the ravine. Other than some unusual blazes, and some plausible trail alignments, we saw nothing. In the ravine we put our packs down and started ranging far more widely, hoping to pick up the trail, and fully expecting to find blazes on trees.
However, crossing the ravine to the east, we found an area thrashed by logging, bulldozers having scrambled up and down and everywhere, and noted the utter impossibility of surely identifying any part of the trail. Eventually we grabbed our packs and wandered south to Nancy Lake, then climbed to a granite plateau dotted with tarns, most dry, and then returned to Nancy Ravine, and began scouting to the east. Now Ron ran low and I went high.
In such an exploration one has to wander and veer from side to side, and we did all the right things, and really covered the hillside well, until, at last, I started climbing higher and higher on the little mountain (call it Nancy Hill) between Nancy Lake and Devils Peak, around which the trail made a broad arc. I climbed farther and higher than I thought the trail could possibly be found, just to make sure, and then--a blaze.
Ron was not even within hailing distance. I continued east and found many blazes, ancient, blurred with time. Soon the trail coincided with a logging road, from a harvest some 40 years ago, in which only the very largest trees had been cut, and most of the blazed trees along the trail had been left alone. Following this road-trail, I descended into more-recently-logged terrain, in which many but not all the blazed trees had been cut, and once again, a road had been cut directly into the line of the trail.
At last the road-trail dropped to the edge of a large meadow. Skirting the north edge of the meadow, I reached the road to Devils Peak, right on the section line north of the peak itself, which was but a quarter-mile away. Here I sat in the shade and waited for Ron, who arrived shortly. He had found the latter part of the road but hadn't seen any blazes.
We had lunch and rested. On the way back, we actually found an undisturbed section of the old trail, as it rounded Nancy Hill. The trail was as we had seen it a couple miles west, on TNF lands, broad and well-defined, that is, a major trail. There were great views across the upper South Yuba basin, Castle and Basin peaks in view, and the ridges above the Lola Montez lakes, etc.
With high hopes we followed the broad old trail west. However, as soon as it left the rocky unforested area, and entered a forested area, it was erased, completely, by logging. Often a skid trail or minor haul road seemed likely to have been cut into the line of the old trail, but I don't recall that we saw more than a couple blazes, over this half-mile back to Nancy Ravine.
At the ravine, we gave up on the old trail, and made our way north to the road we'd hiked up in the morning, and tromped on down and drove home.
We have now followed the Big Bend-Devils Peak Trail from Big Bend to Devils Peak, over at least 80% of its length, and have found that this trail, like too many others (the Big Valley, Sugar Pine Point, Monumental Creek, Mears Meadow, and other trails come to mind), has been for all intents and purposes obliterated.
This trail made a very gentle climb to the base of Devils Peak from Big Bend. It was broad and well-suited to people and stock. I wonder how many people are still alive who hiked this lovely old trail before it was wrecked again and again by logging.
Footnote: while trying to find out about Sinnock Properties on the internet, I did find that some very large parcels have recently sold over in Upper Jones Valley, north of Cisco Grove, in Nevada County. One is over 1000 acres, the other, 640 acres. At least one has already had a "Minor Subdivision" map filed. These parcels include parts of the ridge-line above I-80 north of Big Bend. We could end up with some view-hogging palaces up there. See
http://www.chickeringco.com/listings.html
for further details.
This trail is on the 1962 TNF map of the Foresthill and Big Bend ranger districts.
On Friday we drove to near Kingvale and took the road south from near Donner Trail elementary school, which leads in to Devils Peak and Huntley Mill Lake. We parked just below the railroad, near a recent "No Trespassing" sign hung over the road by Sinnock Properties, a real estate company out of Grass Valley. Walking up and across the tracks, we soon reached a fork right and climbed 150 feet or so over a quarter mile to the plateau where we had ended our explorations last time.
From here we struck up the hill and south, aiming towards a certain pass between the broad shallow valley of the South Yuba and the deeps of the North Fork American, said pass containing Nancy Lake. The 1962 map shows the trail bending in and out of the ravine north of Nanccy Lake. We hoped to find some unlogged terrain and undisturbed stretches of trail. Ron scouted high and I scouted low as we traversed rocky slopes of glaciated granite, flanking the ravine. Other than some unusual blazes, and some plausible trail alignments, we saw nothing. In the ravine we put our packs down and started ranging far more widely, hoping to pick up the trail, and fully expecting to find blazes on trees.
However, crossing the ravine to the east, we found an area thrashed by logging, bulldozers having scrambled up and down and everywhere, and noted the utter impossibility of surely identifying any part of the trail. Eventually we grabbed our packs and wandered south to Nancy Lake, then climbed to a granite plateau dotted with tarns, most dry, and then returned to Nancy Ravine, and began scouting to the east. Now Ron ran low and I went high.
In such an exploration one has to wander and veer from side to side, and we did all the right things, and really covered the hillside well, until, at last, I started climbing higher and higher on the little mountain (call it Nancy Hill) between Nancy Lake and Devils Peak, around which the trail made a broad arc. I climbed farther and higher than I thought the trail could possibly be found, just to make sure, and then--a blaze.
Ron was not even within hailing distance. I continued east and found many blazes, ancient, blurred with time. Soon the trail coincided with a logging road, from a harvest some 40 years ago, in which only the very largest trees had been cut, and most of the blazed trees along the trail had been left alone. Following this road-trail, I descended into more-recently-logged terrain, in which many but not all the blazed trees had been cut, and once again, a road had been cut directly into the line of the trail.
At last the road-trail dropped to the edge of a large meadow. Skirting the north edge of the meadow, I reached the road to Devils Peak, right on the section line north of the peak itself, which was but a quarter-mile away. Here I sat in the shade and waited for Ron, who arrived shortly. He had found the latter part of the road but hadn't seen any blazes.
We had lunch and rested. On the way back, we actually found an undisturbed section of the old trail, as it rounded Nancy Hill. The trail was as we had seen it a couple miles west, on TNF lands, broad and well-defined, that is, a major trail. There were great views across the upper South Yuba basin, Castle and Basin peaks in view, and the ridges above the Lola Montez lakes, etc.
With high hopes we followed the broad old trail west. However, as soon as it left the rocky unforested area, and entered a forested area, it was erased, completely, by logging. Often a skid trail or minor haul road seemed likely to have been cut into the line of the old trail, but I don't recall that we saw more than a couple blazes, over this half-mile back to Nancy Ravine.
At the ravine, we gave up on the old trail, and made our way north to the road we'd hiked up in the morning, and tromped on down and drove home.
We have now followed the Big Bend-Devils Peak Trail from Big Bend to Devils Peak, over at least 80% of its length, and have found that this trail, like too many others (the Big Valley, Sugar Pine Point, Monumental Creek, Mears Meadow, and other trails come to mind), has been for all intents and purposes obliterated.
This trail made a very gentle climb to the base of Devils Peak from Big Bend. It was broad and well-suited to people and stock. I wonder how many people are still alive who hiked this lovely old trail before it was wrecked again and again by logging.
Footnote: while trying to find out about Sinnock Properties on the internet, I did find that some very large parcels have recently sold over in Upper Jones Valley, north of Cisco Grove, in Nevada County. One is over 1000 acres, the other, 640 acres. At least one has already had a "Minor Subdivision" map filed. These parcels include parts of the ridge-line above I-80 north of Big Bend. We could end up with some view-hogging palaces up there. See
http://www.chickeringco.com/listings.html
for further details.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
The Big Granite Trail
Friday dawned amid thunder, lightning, and much rain, and the exploration of the Big Granite Trail Catherine O'Riley and I had planned seemed much in doubt. However, the weather people all agreed that this storm would pass quickly, with clear skies Friday night and warming temperatures on Saturday. So with a bit of our usual devil-may-care spirit urging us along, Catherine swung by the little cabins near Dutch Flat around eleven, and off we went. Gus Wiseman and Greg Towle rounded out the party. We hoped to find Tom and Mary McGuire at the confluence of the North Fork with Big Granite Creek. They had hiked in Wednesday from the Sailor Flat Trail.
Through masses of fog and occasional sprinkles we wound our way in from the Yuba Gap exit, past Huysink Lake and the Salmon Lake trailhead, to a pass on the crest of the ridge dividing Big Valley on the west from Little Granite Creek on the east. A TNF sign there showed Pelham Flat ahead, Huysink Lake behind, and we parked in a log landing beside the road.
The Big Granite Trail seems to have once stemmed from Cisco, on the railroad, and by way of Huysink Lake crossed that very pass where we parked, before descending to Four Horse Flat and Little Granite Creek. It crossed the North Fork at a ford and climbed Sailor Canyon to the La Trinidad Mine and Sailor Flat, up on the Foresthill Divide. So at some point, perhaps the crossing of the North Fork, its name should change to "Sailor Flat Trail."
Gradually roads penetrated this lovely part of the Placer County high country--I have a 1900-era map showing a road from Cisco up to Huysink, for instance--and then in a sustained frenzy of timber harvests and road-building many of the old trails on the area were obliterated, such as the Sugar Pine Point Trail and the Big Valley Trail. Much of this occurred about twenty years ago. There is the usual "checkerboard" pattern of even-numbered TNF sections interspersed with the odd-numbered "railroad" sections, with a few local variations.
Most all if not all of these old railroad sections had been purchased by lumber companies, most notably, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI). This alone caused an increase in timber harvests in the area.
As Rich Johnson of the Foresthill Ranger District recounted to us the other night, at the NFARA meeting, quite a few of the old railroad sections have been purchased by TNF in recent years. I would like to see these land acquisitions continue. For instance, considering only T16N, R13E, sections 7, 17, and 9 would stand at the top of my list. And of these, how much could be said about section 9.
From our parking place in the pass, at 6600' elevation, a steep jeep trail drops to the east, bears south into section 9, and in a few hundred yards ends at a hunters' camp, where there is enough room to turn around. The only time I had ever hiked this part of the Big Granite Trail was in pitch darkness--some six years ago, perhaps--feeling my way with my feet, for the trail itself was firm and compacted, while the rich forest floor was soft. Dave Lawler and I had taken a "short cut" to the trail from Sugar Pine Point, hitting it a couple miles down. We explored the lower part of Big Granite Creek and then ventured a mile or so down the North Fork all the way to the inner gorge below Big Valley Bluff. Then, on our way back up from the river, leg cramps struck, and our pace slowed until finally the fullness of night embraced our little world of gurgling brooks and dense stands of mountain alder and occasional meadows and gigantic ancient trees. With rare and unusual luck, we found the critical fork in the trail by feel alone, and had climbed out of Four Horse Flat, to the hunters' camp, and on up the jeep trail to the road above.
Catherine, Greg, Gus and I were glad to find the foot trail itself and plunged down into a very remarkable grove of huge old Incense Cedar. A fairly light "selective harvest" had been executed, perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, but the stumps were few, and the forest giants, everywhere, running up to five and six feet in diameter, some flaring out to near ten feet in diameter at ground level. The trail actually goes through the fire-hollowed center of one ancient cedar.
As Four Horse Flat is neared the trail suddenly merges with a logging road, often clothed in brush, various species of Ceanothus and Prunus being prominent. Here and there log landings held stacks of Incense Cedar sawlogs, left behind because they were too "pecky"--for a fungus will invade the heartwood of this species, and riddle it with little patches of "rot." Then the loggers come, and one can never tell from the outside just how "pecky" any one ancient Incense Cedar will be. So, you just cut it down, and look and see. It is very very irritating to me that this area was ever logged, and then, to see this--to see that a tree likely all of 500 years old is felled just on the chance the wood is sound--it is just infuriating.
Nevertheless, for all the roads, log landings, and stacks of cull logs, the harvest here had been rather light. We have an opportunity, right now, to lobby TNF to acquire this Section 9, T16N R13E, and other sections close by. Both the Big Granite and Cherry Point trails traverse this Section 9. For an area which has been logged, this is as close to true old-growth forest as one will usually ever see. With some concerted volunteer work the cull logs and stumps could be burned, the roads maintained as trails or closed altogether, and in as little as a decade one could hike through on the Big Granite Trail and scarcely realize that any logging had ever occurred.
And this would be a good thing. A very very good thing, for, there is something quite special, quite exceptional about this trail. Or many special things. For just one, the descent, of 3,600 feet, to the North Fork, is like going from Canada to Mexico in four or five miles! You start out up in the Lodgepole Pines and Red Fir of the high montane forest, and end up among sun-blasted manzanita and Canyon Live Oaks at the river. And there are many delicate shades of changing vegetation, of ecotones and microclimates, along the old trail.
Four Horse Flat is just below 6000' and has many grassy, ferny, flowery meadows, and wet meadows all clogged with Mountain Alder. The Cherry Point Trail merges with the Big Granite Trail in this area. The logging, I guess, has forced a new intersection of the two trails, and moreover, the main trail now in use, as one continues south towards the North Fork, is on the east side of Little Granite Creek, while the true Big Granite Trail holds the west bank for half a mile before it crosses to the east side, at about 5200'.
The forest is rich with huge old trees, White Fir rather than Red Fir, some Douglas Fir, and quite a notable incidence of Incense Cedar. Where the east- and west-side trails merge, Kelloggs Black Oak begins to intermix. This is an area of sudden transition, from the shady groves of ancient conifers, to a mixed oak and coniferous forest on the steep slopes of the canyon of Little Granite Creek.
Little Granite Creek, in this area, flows through metamorphic bedrock, but one might never guess, since a million granite boulders were dragged down here by the ice from the Loch Leven Lakes area and stranded, 12,000 years ago. The creek flows over and around these giant white eggs of granite, and more eggs are embedded everywhere on the steep slopes. The underlying metamorphic rock is almost entirely masked by these glacial deposits.
Below about 5,000 feet, the forest thins and one begins to gain good views of the surrounding terrain. A particularly monstrous cliff over on Sugar Pine Point is seen again and again as one descends. Then the trail bends east towards Big Granite Creek and steepens drastically, with many switchbacks, and passes a very notable and rare old grove of monstrous Canyon Live Oaks. I doubt I've ever seen so many giant oaks in one area. One had several large trunks, and two of these trunks, each near three feet in diameter, were connected about twenty feet above the ground by an arch of living wood. I called it the Monstrosi-Tree.
Having already made a descent of over 2000 feet, these steep switchbacks began to really take their toll, with toes crammed forward in our shoes, and despite the otherwordly fog and mist which swirled throughout the canyons and cliffs around us, we were sweating. At last the trail levels and bears east to the crossing of Big Granite Creek.
We took a long rest, and I explored downstream about a quarter-mile to the confluence of Little Granite Creek, in search of some fossiliferous Triassic limestone. I found some isolated masses of limestone, delicately fluted by solution-type erosion, with myriad little ridges and channels and hollows, but no discernible fossils. Later, upon re-examining my map, I saw that I should have gone much higher into Little Granite Creek. Another time, then.
The bed of Big Granite Creek just like that of Little Granite Creek had been, at the crossing: giant rounded granite boulders everywhere. We shouldered our packs and continued down the trail towards the river. It follows a roughly level line for a time, on a southerly bearing, and soon one breaks free of the forest into glaciated barrens of metamorphic rock. Far below, within what looks to be the impassible inner gorge of Big Granite Creek--and here flowing directly over the bedrock, without any granite eggs--we could see waterfalls and deep deep pools.
Crossing the Big Southwest Spur of Snow Mountain, the North Fork itself finally was in view, and after a few switchbacks we found our side trail leading west to the confluence of Big Granite Creek. Right at the fork there is an ancient TNF sign reading "Ford" and "Sailor Flat Trail" (and possibly "Robinson Flat") with an arrow pointing left. The post stands but the sign has split and lies on the rocks. We hustled on down to the river. Tom and Mary were not in camp, but we spotted them picking their way down cliffy areas beside the waterfalls just upstream. They looked a little shocked that strangers would arrive at their camp. However, Greg zoomed up there and identified our party, and soon we were lazing around the camp and chatting. Tom and Mary were there in the depths of the great rock-bound canyon during the several thunderstorms and were almost but not quite driven into a headlong retreat.
The fog was lifting, the clouds thinning, and we struck up a cozy little fire using more or less sodden wood. Supper was a matter of roasting vegetarian hot dogs and other delicacies. We turned in around ten under starry skies. Mars so bright had risen just above the forested ridges near New York Canyon to the southeast.
I rose before dawn and built a new fire and heated water for coffee. Tom joined me and then Greg and Gus and what with coffee and cocoa and a modest little breakfast of Grape Nuts etc. hours passed. The sun struck the canyon rim and the slowly entered the canyon depths. Yet Catherine O'Riley remained snugly wrapped in her one-man tent. I took off downriver with my loppers and worked on the fine old trail, which never appears on maps. By the time I returned the sun was about blazing and everyone was stirring.
We explored west on the trail, which stays high for a quarter-mile before dropping to river level at a large gravel bar with a lovely deep pool. Here a few of us swam, the others strangely indulging in fears of how very cold the water might be. The water was cool but not bitingly cold. Some rocks rose in tiny cliffs along one side and allowed easy jumps and dives from about ten feet up.
An osprey flew over us twice while at the pool, and from the trees nearby a peeping was heard, which might have been a second osprey.
Regrouping and reclothing, we continued west on the trail, and another quarter mile or less brought us to a large sandy flat with a grove of oaks and some ancient wheelbarrows and a huge fire ring littered with garbage. A small cross had been erected where the trail reached the camp, and I have little doubt but that this had been the camp of the large Christian youth group party, of fifty kids and five or six adults, Ron Gould and Greg and I had seen on the Sailor Flat Trail in June. They need to do a *much* better job of picking up their trash and also in using basic sanitary practices, so that wads of toilet paper are not scattered through the area.
A little ways beyond the camp, the trail appears to ford the river. We followed it a short distance past the ford, where a line of boulders allows an easy crossing, and found the path not only indistinct but overgrown, so, the retreat was sounded, and we made the easy walk back east to Big Granite Creek.
After lunch we scrambled up the creek to an amazing pool and waterfall surrounded by cliffs with one just gigantic overhang. Some swam and some scrambled around on the water-polished metasediments of the Sierra Buttes Formation. The waterfall occupies a twisted little inner gorge, a gorge within a gorge, a spiralling slot in the cliff.
Finally it was time to leave. Around two p.m. we shouldered our packs and started up the side trail. Tom came along for a ways, since he had never been on the Big Granite Trail. We had the benefit of the warmest part of the day combined with the least possible shade as we switched back and forth up the almost bare rock of Snow Mountain Spur. A rather quick and brutal climb of 500 feet carries one across the spur and into the canyon of Big Granite Creek.
At the crossing we had a long rest, and Tom left us at a trot to get back to lovely Mary, who had stayed at the camp, alone. Then the long slog up and out really kicked into gear, if you can call a deadly slow trudge, punctuated by numerous stops, "in gear." That trail is a killer. That 3,600 feet is a terrible terrible thing. We did stop often and long and as a result reached the car at 7:20, with the shadows growing very long and the sun almost setting.
One curiosity of the ascent was a sign, reading "Big Granite Trail," the words nicely routed into a slab of wood and bolted to a tree, in the Four Horse Flat area. We had seen no sign the day before. And, following the logging road reach just above the sign, I saw a peculiar patch of trail which had been freshly dug out wider. And I saw that some of the branches I had lopped the day before had been neatly stowed off the trail; and yet no one in our party had been stowing the cut branches, that I was aware. Then, in a mud puddle, two bootprints were seen, leading up and out. So it all gave every indication that that very day, Saturday, someone had walked in and bolted up the sign and did a little trail work.
I will call the ranger station at Big Bend and ask Phil Sexton. Maybe he knows about the sign.
Such was a wonderful visit to the North Fork by way of the Big Granite Trail.
Through masses of fog and occasional sprinkles we wound our way in from the Yuba Gap exit, past Huysink Lake and the Salmon Lake trailhead, to a pass on the crest of the ridge dividing Big Valley on the west from Little Granite Creek on the east. A TNF sign there showed Pelham Flat ahead, Huysink Lake behind, and we parked in a log landing beside the road.
The Big Granite Trail seems to have once stemmed from Cisco, on the railroad, and by way of Huysink Lake crossed that very pass where we parked, before descending to Four Horse Flat and Little Granite Creek. It crossed the North Fork at a ford and climbed Sailor Canyon to the La Trinidad Mine and Sailor Flat, up on the Foresthill Divide. So at some point, perhaps the crossing of the North Fork, its name should change to "Sailor Flat Trail."
Gradually roads penetrated this lovely part of the Placer County high country--I have a 1900-era map showing a road from Cisco up to Huysink, for instance--and then in a sustained frenzy of timber harvests and road-building many of the old trails on the area were obliterated, such as the Sugar Pine Point Trail and the Big Valley Trail. Much of this occurred about twenty years ago. There is the usual "checkerboard" pattern of even-numbered TNF sections interspersed with the odd-numbered "railroad" sections, with a few local variations.
Most all if not all of these old railroad sections had been purchased by lumber companies, most notably, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI). This alone caused an increase in timber harvests in the area.
As Rich Johnson of the Foresthill Ranger District recounted to us the other night, at the NFARA meeting, quite a few of the old railroad sections have been purchased by TNF in recent years. I would like to see these land acquisitions continue. For instance, considering only T16N, R13E, sections 7, 17, and 9 would stand at the top of my list. And of these, how much could be said about section 9.
From our parking place in the pass, at 6600' elevation, a steep jeep trail drops to the east, bears south into section 9, and in a few hundred yards ends at a hunters' camp, where there is enough room to turn around. The only time I had ever hiked this part of the Big Granite Trail was in pitch darkness--some six years ago, perhaps--feeling my way with my feet, for the trail itself was firm and compacted, while the rich forest floor was soft. Dave Lawler and I had taken a "short cut" to the trail from Sugar Pine Point, hitting it a couple miles down. We explored the lower part of Big Granite Creek and then ventured a mile or so down the North Fork all the way to the inner gorge below Big Valley Bluff. Then, on our way back up from the river, leg cramps struck, and our pace slowed until finally the fullness of night embraced our little world of gurgling brooks and dense stands of mountain alder and occasional meadows and gigantic ancient trees. With rare and unusual luck, we found the critical fork in the trail by feel alone, and had climbed out of Four Horse Flat, to the hunters' camp, and on up the jeep trail to the road above.
Catherine, Greg, Gus and I were glad to find the foot trail itself and plunged down into a very remarkable grove of huge old Incense Cedar. A fairly light "selective harvest" had been executed, perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, but the stumps were few, and the forest giants, everywhere, running up to five and six feet in diameter, some flaring out to near ten feet in diameter at ground level. The trail actually goes through the fire-hollowed center of one ancient cedar.
As Four Horse Flat is neared the trail suddenly merges with a logging road, often clothed in brush, various species of Ceanothus and Prunus being prominent. Here and there log landings held stacks of Incense Cedar sawlogs, left behind because they were too "pecky"--for a fungus will invade the heartwood of this species, and riddle it with little patches of "rot." Then the loggers come, and one can never tell from the outside just how "pecky" any one ancient Incense Cedar will be. So, you just cut it down, and look and see. It is very very irritating to me that this area was ever logged, and then, to see this--to see that a tree likely all of 500 years old is felled just on the chance the wood is sound--it is just infuriating.
Nevertheless, for all the roads, log landings, and stacks of cull logs, the harvest here had been rather light. We have an opportunity, right now, to lobby TNF to acquire this Section 9, T16N R13E, and other sections close by. Both the Big Granite and Cherry Point trails traverse this Section 9. For an area which has been logged, this is as close to true old-growth forest as one will usually ever see. With some concerted volunteer work the cull logs and stumps could be burned, the roads maintained as trails or closed altogether, and in as little as a decade one could hike through on the Big Granite Trail and scarcely realize that any logging had ever occurred.
And this would be a good thing. A very very good thing, for, there is something quite special, quite exceptional about this trail. Or many special things. For just one, the descent, of 3,600 feet, to the North Fork, is like going from Canada to Mexico in four or five miles! You start out up in the Lodgepole Pines and Red Fir of the high montane forest, and end up among sun-blasted manzanita and Canyon Live Oaks at the river. And there are many delicate shades of changing vegetation, of ecotones and microclimates, along the old trail.
Four Horse Flat is just below 6000' and has many grassy, ferny, flowery meadows, and wet meadows all clogged with Mountain Alder. The Cherry Point Trail merges with the Big Granite Trail in this area. The logging, I guess, has forced a new intersection of the two trails, and moreover, the main trail now in use, as one continues south towards the North Fork, is on the east side of Little Granite Creek, while the true Big Granite Trail holds the west bank for half a mile before it crosses to the east side, at about 5200'.
The forest is rich with huge old trees, White Fir rather than Red Fir, some Douglas Fir, and quite a notable incidence of Incense Cedar. Where the east- and west-side trails merge, Kelloggs Black Oak begins to intermix. This is an area of sudden transition, from the shady groves of ancient conifers, to a mixed oak and coniferous forest on the steep slopes of the canyon of Little Granite Creek.
Little Granite Creek, in this area, flows through metamorphic bedrock, but one might never guess, since a million granite boulders were dragged down here by the ice from the Loch Leven Lakes area and stranded, 12,000 years ago. The creek flows over and around these giant white eggs of granite, and more eggs are embedded everywhere on the steep slopes. The underlying metamorphic rock is almost entirely masked by these glacial deposits.
Below about 5,000 feet, the forest thins and one begins to gain good views of the surrounding terrain. A particularly monstrous cliff over on Sugar Pine Point is seen again and again as one descends. Then the trail bends east towards Big Granite Creek and steepens drastically, with many switchbacks, and passes a very notable and rare old grove of monstrous Canyon Live Oaks. I doubt I've ever seen so many giant oaks in one area. One had several large trunks, and two of these trunks, each near three feet in diameter, were connected about twenty feet above the ground by an arch of living wood. I called it the Monstrosi-Tree.
Having already made a descent of over 2000 feet, these steep switchbacks began to really take their toll, with toes crammed forward in our shoes, and despite the otherwordly fog and mist which swirled throughout the canyons and cliffs around us, we were sweating. At last the trail levels and bears east to the crossing of Big Granite Creek.
We took a long rest, and I explored downstream about a quarter-mile to the confluence of Little Granite Creek, in search of some fossiliferous Triassic limestone. I found some isolated masses of limestone, delicately fluted by solution-type erosion, with myriad little ridges and channels and hollows, but no discernible fossils. Later, upon re-examining my map, I saw that I should have gone much higher into Little Granite Creek. Another time, then.
The bed of Big Granite Creek just like that of Little Granite Creek had been, at the crossing: giant rounded granite boulders everywhere. We shouldered our packs and continued down the trail towards the river. It follows a roughly level line for a time, on a southerly bearing, and soon one breaks free of the forest into glaciated barrens of metamorphic rock. Far below, within what looks to be the impassible inner gorge of Big Granite Creek--and here flowing directly over the bedrock, without any granite eggs--we could see waterfalls and deep deep pools.
Crossing the Big Southwest Spur of Snow Mountain, the North Fork itself finally was in view, and after a few switchbacks we found our side trail leading west to the confluence of Big Granite Creek. Right at the fork there is an ancient TNF sign reading "Ford" and "Sailor Flat Trail" (and possibly "Robinson Flat") with an arrow pointing left. The post stands but the sign has split and lies on the rocks. We hustled on down to the river. Tom and Mary were not in camp, but we spotted them picking their way down cliffy areas beside the waterfalls just upstream. They looked a little shocked that strangers would arrive at their camp. However, Greg zoomed up there and identified our party, and soon we were lazing around the camp and chatting. Tom and Mary were there in the depths of the great rock-bound canyon during the several thunderstorms and were almost but not quite driven into a headlong retreat.
The fog was lifting, the clouds thinning, and we struck up a cozy little fire using more or less sodden wood. Supper was a matter of roasting vegetarian hot dogs and other delicacies. We turned in around ten under starry skies. Mars so bright had risen just above the forested ridges near New York Canyon to the southeast.
I rose before dawn and built a new fire and heated water for coffee. Tom joined me and then Greg and Gus and what with coffee and cocoa and a modest little breakfast of Grape Nuts etc. hours passed. The sun struck the canyon rim and the slowly entered the canyon depths. Yet Catherine O'Riley remained snugly wrapped in her one-man tent. I took off downriver with my loppers and worked on the fine old trail, which never appears on maps. By the time I returned the sun was about blazing and everyone was stirring.
We explored west on the trail, which stays high for a quarter-mile before dropping to river level at a large gravel bar with a lovely deep pool. Here a few of us swam, the others strangely indulging in fears of how very cold the water might be. The water was cool but not bitingly cold. Some rocks rose in tiny cliffs along one side and allowed easy jumps and dives from about ten feet up.
An osprey flew over us twice while at the pool, and from the trees nearby a peeping was heard, which might have been a second osprey.
Regrouping and reclothing, we continued west on the trail, and another quarter mile or less brought us to a large sandy flat with a grove of oaks and some ancient wheelbarrows and a huge fire ring littered with garbage. A small cross had been erected where the trail reached the camp, and I have little doubt but that this had been the camp of the large Christian youth group party, of fifty kids and five or six adults, Ron Gould and Greg and I had seen on the Sailor Flat Trail in June. They need to do a *much* better job of picking up their trash and also in using basic sanitary practices, so that wads of toilet paper are not scattered through the area.
A little ways beyond the camp, the trail appears to ford the river. We followed it a short distance past the ford, where a line of boulders allows an easy crossing, and found the path not only indistinct but overgrown, so, the retreat was sounded, and we made the easy walk back east to Big Granite Creek.
After lunch we scrambled up the creek to an amazing pool and waterfall surrounded by cliffs with one just gigantic overhang. Some swam and some scrambled around on the water-polished metasediments of the Sierra Buttes Formation. The waterfall occupies a twisted little inner gorge, a gorge within a gorge, a spiralling slot in the cliff.
Finally it was time to leave. Around two p.m. we shouldered our packs and started up the side trail. Tom came along for a ways, since he had never been on the Big Granite Trail. We had the benefit of the warmest part of the day combined with the least possible shade as we switched back and forth up the almost bare rock of Snow Mountain Spur. A rather quick and brutal climb of 500 feet carries one across the spur and into the canyon of Big Granite Creek.
At the crossing we had a long rest, and Tom left us at a trot to get back to lovely Mary, who had stayed at the camp, alone. Then the long slog up and out really kicked into gear, if you can call a deadly slow trudge, punctuated by numerous stops, "in gear." That trail is a killer. That 3,600 feet is a terrible terrible thing. We did stop often and long and as a result reached the car at 7:20, with the shadows growing very long and the sun almost setting.
One curiosity of the ascent was a sign, reading "Big Granite Trail," the words nicely routed into a slab of wood and bolted to a tree, in the Four Horse Flat area. We had seen no sign the day before. And, following the logging road reach just above the sign, I saw a peculiar patch of trail which had been freshly dug out wider. And I saw that some of the branches I had lopped the day before had been neatly stowed off the trail; and yet no one in our party had been stowing the cut branches, that I was aware. Then, in a mud puddle, two bootprints were seen, leading up and out. So it all gave every indication that that very day, Saturday, someone had walked in and bolted up the sign and did a little trail work.
I will call the ranger station at Big Bend and ask Phil Sexton. Maybe he knows about the sign.
Such was a wonderful visit to the North Fork by way of the Big Granite Trail.
Friday, August 22, 2003
Burnett Canyon & the NFNFAR
Ron Gould and I drove up to Emigrant Gap and in on Forest Road 19 to the end of the pavement and hung a right onto Texas Hill Road. At the fork one stays left to Sawtooth Ridge and right to Texas Hill and the Burnett Canyon Trail.
This trail no longer shows on the "Big" TNF map and for good reason: it has been obliterated by logging, entirely on TNF lands in sections 20 and 29, T16N R12E, at both the north and south ends of the old trail.
Ron and I decided to check on the north-side trail. The trail crosses Burnett Canyon--a fairly major tributary of the NFNFAR-- on a nearly north-south line. Here gold miner/photographer Isaac Tibbetts Coffin resided from 1858 to 1864, in two cabins, one near the trail on the north side of Burnett Canyon, the other, to the west and north at Texas Hill, where a lode claim, tunnel, and blacksmith shop were located. Coffin and friends dug a ditch several miles long which winds down Burnett Canyon, high above the creek, in fact, the road on to Sawtooth Ridge crosses this little ditch.
We followed the ridge down to the south through an area which had seen two or three selective harvests, going back to the Towle Bros. lumber company, around 1900, and then the entire ridge-crest had been swept over by an army of bulldozers and other equipment in a classic "fuel load reduction" project. Every last little trace of the trail is gone. Well, on the way out, we did see one line of boulders, maybe ten feet long or so, red with age, suggesting the line of the trail.
Eventually we reached the edge of the "inner gorge" of Burnett Canyon. Here an old narrow-gauge railroad roadbed likely dating to the Towle Bros. contoured along. Below the railroad line there was no fuel load reduction, and suddenly the old trail appeared. It had survived at least two selective cuts on these steeper slopes, apparently without difficulty. Old blazes scarred many trees, and we even saw signs that TNF had maintained the trail, in the olden days of perhaps thirty years past, before timber harvests won out over nearly every other use of the Forest.
We dropped on down to the creek in light rain showers and admired the huge masses of gigantic-leaved Indian Rhubarb. The trail was easily seen across the creek, climbing up the far side, to where it was obliterated by a clearcut.
We struggled back up the steep trail to the fuel load reduction zone and found that we could actually follow the trail a full 100 feet north, before it disappeared beneath the general welter of the fuel reduction. When we at last topped out on the road, we stumbled upon the line of Coffin's ditch, just above, and figure that this was exactly where the Burnett Canyon Trail met the ditch. Coffin likely followed the ditch itself west to the Texas Hill cabin, whenever he went there from Burnett Canyon.
We drove on out to Sawtooth Ridge, far far out on the maze of logging roads, into the clearcuts in Section 35 near Helester Point, and were at last stopped by a fallen tree, and walked the rest of the way to there the steep descent to the NFNFAR is made. The day was cloudy and cool, but muggy, and we broke a good sweat picking our way down the steeps. At the river, we hustled on down to the Rawhide Dam, and then on beyond to the cabin site, and the wagon road. While lopping away in a snarl of deerbrush and small Douglas Fir, I was about to clear a mass of dead branches caught in the Douglas Fir I was lopping, when I realized in an instant of pure terror that my loppers were one inch from the head of a rattlesnake, a large snake which made the better part of the "dead branches" I was about to attack. The snake was moving its head and staring right at me. In the space of about one-tenth of a second this all dawned upon me and with a screech I jumped back a foot or two, and then, the enormity of it taking hold, I screamed profanities and made an all-out Superman-like dive into a mass of rotten oak branches another six feet back, right at Ron's feet. I smashed the dead branches with a satisfying crunch even as I examined them for the likelihood of still more vicious snakes.
The rattler stayed put and never rattled, except for the whisper, the ghost of a rattle, which sounded more like someone shuffling cards in the next room, or rather less than that. We duly photographed the healthy thing, partly wrapped around the little Douglas Fir at about two feet above the ground.
After that, there was a great swim in a large pool, no more lopping by the way, and then the long intricate scramble up the beautiful river, and the insanely steep climb up "the gully" to our logging road, 800 feet above the river, and then at last the truck, and the long long drive out. We were back down to Dutch Flat a little after sunset.
It is quite a shame that the North Fork of the North Fork never got Wild & Scenic River designation. Ron and I saw trees at river level marked with blue spray paint, and a lot of fresh flagging along the logging road above, so, there's every sign that the timber harvest on the SPI lands in Section 35 are not over let. And I am puzzled that they are allowed to log right down to the river. That area will be helicopter-yarded, so, that may be what allows them to do what is ordinarily not permitted, i.e., to harvest trees right from the banks of streams and rivers.
Maybe we should fire some letters off to William Schultz at CDF, asking that there be a buffer zone of no harvest, along this lovely river.
This trail no longer shows on the "Big" TNF map and for good reason: it has been obliterated by logging, entirely on TNF lands in sections 20 and 29, T16N R12E, at both the north and south ends of the old trail.
Ron and I decided to check on the north-side trail. The trail crosses Burnett Canyon--a fairly major tributary of the NFNFAR-- on a nearly north-south line. Here gold miner/photographer Isaac Tibbetts Coffin resided from 1858 to 1864, in two cabins, one near the trail on the north side of Burnett Canyon, the other, to the west and north at Texas Hill, where a lode claim, tunnel, and blacksmith shop were located. Coffin and friends dug a ditch several miles long which winds down Burnett Canyon, high above the creek, in fact, the road on to Sawtooth Ridge crosses this little ditch.
We followed the ridge down to the south through an area which had seen two or three selective harvests, going back to the Towle Bros. lumber company, around 1900, and then the entire ridge-crest had been swept over by an army of bulldozers and other equipment in a classic "fuel load reduction" project. Every last little trace of the trail is gone. Well, on the way out, we did see one line of boulders, maybe ten feet long or so, red with age, suggesting the line of the trail.
Eventually we reached the edge of the "inner gorge" of Burnett Canyon. Here an old narrow-gauge railroad roadbed likely dating to the Towle Bros. contoured along. Below the railroad line there was no fuel load reduction, and suddenly the old trail appeared. It had survived at least two selective cuts on these steeper slopes, apparently without difficulty. Old blazes scarred many trees, and we even saw signs that TNF had maintained the trail, in the olden days of perhaps thirty years past, before timber harvests won out over nearly every other use of the Forest.
We dropped on down to the creek in light rain showers and admired the huge masses of gigantic-leaved Indian Rhubarb. The trail was easily seen across the creek, climbing up the far side, to where it was obliterated by a clearcut.
We struggled back up the steep trail to the fuel load reduction zone and found that we could actually follow the trail a full 100 feet north, before it disappeared beneath the general welter of the fuel reduction. When we at last topped out on the road, we stumbled upon the line of Coffin's ditch, just above, and figure that this was exactly where the Burnett Canyon Trail met the ditch. Coffin likely followed the ditch itself west to the Texas Hill cabin, whenever he went there from Burnett Canyon.
We drove on out to Sawtooth Ridge, far far out on the maze of logging roads, into the clearcuts in Section 35 near Helester Point, and were at last stopped by a fallen tree, and walked the rest of the way to there the steep descent to the NFNFAR is made. The day was cloudy and cool, but muggy, and we broke a good sweat picking our way down the steeps. At the river, we hustled on down to the Rawhide Dam, and then on beyond to the cabin site, and the wagon road. While lopping away in a snarl of deerbrush and small Douglas Fir, I was about to clear a mass of dead branches caught in the Douglas Fir I was lopping, when I realized in an instant of pure terror that my loppers were one inch from the head of a rattlesnake, a large snake which made the better part of the "dead branches" I was about to attack. The snake was moving its head and staring right at me. In the space of about one-tenth of a second this all dawned upon me and with a screech I jumped back a foot or two, and then, the enormity of it taking hold, I screamed profanities and made an all-out Superman-like dive into a mass of rotten oak branches another six feet back, right at Ron's feet. I smashed the dead branches with a satisfying crunch even as I examined them for the likelihood of still more vicious snakes.
The rattler stayed put and never rattled, except for the whisper, the ghost of a rattle, which sounded more like someone shuffling cards in the next room, or rather less than that. We duly photographed the healthy thing, partly wrapped around the little Douglas Fir at about two feet above the ground.
After that, there was a great swim in a large pool, no more lopping by the way, and then the long intricate scramble up the beautiful river, and the insanely steep climb up "the gully" to our logging road, 800 feet above the river, and then at last the truck, and the long long drive out. We were back down to Dutch Flat a little after sunset.
It is quite a shame that the North Fork of the North Fork never got Wild & Scenic River designation. Ron and I saw trees at river level marked with blue spray paint, and a lot of fresh flagging along the logging road above, so, there's every sign that the timber harvest on the SPI lands in Section 35 are not over let. And I am puzzled that they are allowed to log right down to the river. That area will be helicopter-yarded, so, that may be what allows them to do what is ordinarily not permitted, i.e., to harvest trees right from the banks of streams and rivers.
Maybe we should fire some letters off to William Schultz at CDF, asking that there be a buffer zone of no harvest, along this lovely river.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Robert Louis Stevenson and the North Fork
I am always on the lookout for old descriptions of the North Fork American. It is quite amazing what one can find on the internet. This morning I stumbled upon Robert Louis Stevenson's diary-essay, "Across the Plains," date uncertain, but I would guess, in the late 1870s. The entire essay is remarkable. Little vignettes illuminate unforeseen historical corners, as when he changes from the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific, in Utah, and finds the cars of the CPRR so much taller and airier, clean, and freshly varnished; it put a new complexion on what had been a rather tiresome journey.
He also remarks upon the anti-Chinese movement (this suggests the late 1870s); how the Chinese had their own car, on the train, and that the Chinese car smelled better than the white cars, but the whites, when brought face-to-face with a Chinese man, would clutch their throats, as if strangling with the bad Chinese smell, and about to throw up.
So. The excerpt below begins with a glance back at the deserts of Nevada, and then, late at night, the train has stopped, perhaps in the canyon of the Truckee, west of Verdi, or perhaps near Donner Lake, in Coldstream Canyon.
The next morning Stevenson awakes, the train breaks free of the snowsheds once, near Emigrant Gap, and then breaks free again, for once and for all, at Blue Canyon. The American River Canyon is now in view.
*******
Of all the next day I will tell you nothing, for the best of all
reasons, that I remember no more than that we continued through
desolate and desert scenes, fiery hot and deadly weary. But some
time after I had fallen asleep that night, I was awakened by one of
my companions. It was in vain that I resisted. A fire of
enthusiasm and whisky burned in his eyes; and he declared we were
in a new country, and I must come forth upon the platform and see
with my own eyes. The train was then, in its patient way, standing
halted in a by-track. It was a clear, moonlit night; but the
valley was too narrow to admit the moonshine direct, and only a
diffused glimmer whitened the tall rocks and relieved the blackness
of the pines. A hoarse clamour filled the air; it was the
continuous plunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among the
mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good and vigorous in
the nostrils - a fine, dry, old mountain atmosphere. I was dead
sleepy, but I returned to roost with a grateful mountain feeling at
my heart.
When I awoke next morning, I was puzzled for a while to know if it
were day or night, for the illumination was unusual. I sat up at
last, and found we were grading slowly downward through a long
snowshed; and suddenly we shot into an open; and before we were
swallowed into the next length of wooden tunnel, I had one glimpse
of a huge pine-forested ravine upon my left, a foaming river, and a
sky already coloured with the fires of dawn. I am usually very
calm over the displays of nature; but you will scarce believe how
my heart leaped at this. It was like meeting one's wife. I had
come home again - home from unsightly deserts to the green and
habitable corners of the earth. Every spire of pine along the
hill-top, every trouty pool along that mountain river, was more
dear to me than a blood relation. Few people have praised God more
happily than I did. And thenceforward, down by Blue Canon, Alta,
Dutch Flat, and all the old mining camps, through a sea of mountain
forests, dropping thousands of feet toward the far sea-level as we
went, not I only, but all the passengers on board, threw off their
sense of dirt and heat and weariness, and bawled like schoolboys,
and thronged with shining eyes upon the platform and became new
creatures within and without. The sun no longer oppressed us with
heat, it only shone laughingly along the mountain-side, until we
were fain to laugh ourselves for glee. At every turn we could see
farther into the land and our own happy futures. At every town the
cocks were tossing their clear notes into the golden air, and
crowing for the new day and the new country. For this was indeed
our destination; this was "the good country" we had been going to
so long.
By afternoon we were at Sacramento, the city of gardens in a plain
of corn ....
*******
He also remarks upon the anti-Chinese movement (this suggests the late 1870s); how the Chinese had their own car, on the train, and that the Chinese car smelled better than the white cars, but the whites, when brought face-to-face with a Chinese man, would clutch their throats, as if strangling with the bad Chinese smell, and about to throw up.
So. The excerpt below begins with a glance back at the deserts of Nevada, and then, late at night, the train has stopped, perhaps in the canyon of the Truckee, west of Verdi, or perhaps near Donner Lake, in Coldstream Canyon.
The next morning Stevenson awakes, the train breaks free of the snowsheds once, near Emigrant Gap, and then breaks free again, for once and for all, at Blue Canyon. The American River Canyon is now in view.
*******
Of all the next day I will tell you nothing, for the best of all
reasons, that I remember no more than that we continued through
desolate and desert scenes, fiery hot and deadly weary. But some
time after I had fallen asleep that night, I was awakened by one of
my companions. It was in vain that I resisted. A fire of
enthusiasm and whisky burned in his eyes; and he declared we were
in a new country, and I must come forth upon the platform and see
with my own eyes. The train was then, in its patient way, standing
halted in a by-track. It was a clear, moonlit night; but the
valley was too narrow to admit the moonshine direct, and only a
diffused glimmer whitened the tall rocks and relieved the blackness
of the pines. A hoarse clamour filled the air; it was the
continuous plunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among the
mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good and vigorous in
the nostrils - a fine, dry, old mountain atmosphere. I was dead
sleepy, but I returned to roost with a grateful mountain feeling at
my heart.
When I awoke next morning, I was puzzled for a while to know if it
were day or night, for the illumination was unusual. I sat up at
last, and found we were grading slowly downward through a long
snowshed; and suddenly we shot into an open; and before we were
swallowed into the next length of wooden tunnel, I had one glimpse
of a huge pine-forested ravine upon my left, a foaming river, and a
sky already coloured with the fires of dawn. I am usually very
calm over the displays of nature; but you will scarce believe how
my heart leaped at this. It was like meeting one's wife. I had
come home again - home from unsightly deserts to the green and
habitable corners of the earth. Every spire of pine along the
hill-top, every trouty pool along that mountain river, was more
dear to me than a blood relation. Few people have praised God more
happily than I did. And thenceforward, down by Blue Canon, Alta,
Dutch Flat, and all the old mining camps, through a sea of mountain
forests, dropping thousands of feet toward the far sea-level as we
went, not I only, but all the passengers on board, threw off their
sense of dirt and heat and weariness, and bawled like schoolboys,
and thronged with shining eyes upon the platform and became new
creatures within and without. The sun no longer oppressed us with
heat, it only shone laughingly along the mountain-side, until we
were fain to laugh ourselves for glee. At every turn we could see
farther into the land and our own happy futures. At every town the
cocks were tossing their clear notes into the golden air, and
crowing for the new day and the new country. For this was indeed
our destination; this was "the good country" we had been going to
so long.
By afternoon we were at Sacramento, the city of gardens in a plain
of corn ....
*******
Thursday, August 14, 2003
Lost Camp CDF Inspection
Rich Jenkins, CDF archeologist at Redding, called today, with questions about the exact location of the China Trail. He said a CDF field review of the Lost Camp project is imminent, that quite a few letters have been received, and, furthermore, he intimated that some highly placed political forces had been brought to bear, and that (as a resul) unusually high-echelon CDF personnel would attend the field review.
I have no idea what highly placed political forces were at work.
Rich also verified that the fascinating ore-cart runs out in Fulda Canyon are already in the RPF's archeological survey. He thought they were well within the helicopter-yarding zone, hence, relatively well-protected; for tractor yarding is notoriously disruptive of things like trails (and ore-cart runs).
He also asked about the location of the Chinese artifacts we saw out there at Lost Camp last Sunday.
My impression is that the CDF will require that care be taken to protect the China Trail. However, when I mentioned the flagging we saw, marked "trail," Rich thought that might have only marked a proposed bulldozer skid trail!
I offered to attend the CDF review and show the team the China Trail and all archeological sites I was familiar with, but he said that could not happen without the invitation of the landowner.
I have no idea what highly placed political forces were at work.
Rich also verified that the fascinating ore-cart runs out in Fulda Canyon are already in the RPF's archeological survey. He thought they were well within the helicopter-yarding zone, hence, relatively well-protected; for tractor yarding is notoriously disruptive of things like trails (and ore-cart runs).
He also asked about the location of the Chinese artifacts we saw out there at Lost Camp last Sunday.
My impression is that the CDF will require that care be taken to protect the China Trail. However, when I mentioned the flagging we saw, marked "trail," Rich thought that might have only marked a proposed bulldozer skid trail!
I offered to attend the CDF review and show the team the China Trail and all archeological sites I was familiar with, but he said that could not happen without the invitation of the landowner.
I spoke with Peter Elias of Nevada City at length yesterday. Peter has been monitoring THPs in the South Yuba and overall Yuba basin for a while now, offering comments to CDF, etc. He reports very little success in modifying THPs, and an all-around lack of interest by local conservation organizations, partly because anyone who has tried knows that it is about impossible to stop a THP. Peter said the really dedicated folks over in the Mendocino area carefully constuct written comments to CDF on any THP so that the groundwork is properly laid for subsequent legal action.
Catherine O'Riley sent the following letter to CDF re the Lost Camp THP:
*******
August 13, 2003
William Schultz
CDF
6105 Airport Road
Redding, CA 96002
re: Timber Harvest Plan 2-03-040-PLA
Dear Mr. Schultz:
I am a concerned citizen who hikes extensively
throughout the North Fork American River Canyons.
It has come to my attention that there will be a
timber harvest in the Lost Camp area. I enjoy
walking down what is known as the China Trail out
of Lost Camp and continuing upstream past Texas
and Fulda Canyons. This timber harvest concerns
me on many levels.
First of all, it appears that most of the large
and medium sized trees will be cut down leaving a
plethora of small trees that will foster future
fuel loading. Further, I believe that it is
unconscionable to cut down old growth trees and
that these trees should be spared. At the very
least, a buffer of trees along the access road to
the trail and along the trail itself should not
be cut down.
Considering that the timber harvest includes
portions of the steep and rugged Blue, Texas and
Fulda Canyons it seems likely that erosion will
ensue which will negatively impact the wild and
scenic qualities of the North Fork American
River.
There is no doubt that this area is of historic
and archaeologic interest. Yet, the
archeological report is not available to the
general public. I would like to have this report
made available to me and, if it is incomplete, to
have a new archeological study undertaken.
Recently I visited the North Fork American River
via the China Trail and noticed thousands upon
thousand of ladybugs. What about the impacts on
them, as well as the Foothill Yellow-legged
Frogs, goshawks and numerous other animals living
in the area who will loose their habitat?
I was heartened to see some flagging along the
Trail indicating that it is, indeed, a trail. It
would be shameful to destroy one of the best kept
trails that I have been on in the North Fork when
so many other old historic trails have been
obliterated by logging operations.
In regard to the proposed new logging roads, it
seems that there are ample existing roads on
which to transport the dead trees. I suggest
that you use these or remove the trees by
helicopter.
As a private landowner I can appreciate the right
to do as one chooses with their land. However,
sometimes we must consider how our actions will
impact life around us and the future of the
planet on the whole. After all, we have our
national heritage to protect and preserve for
future generations.
Finally, would you please extend the comment
period so that other concerned citizens can
respond to this harvest.
Thank you for considering my comments.
Sincerely,
Catherine O'Riley
*******
That's a good one!
Catherine O'Riley sent the following letter to CDF re the Lost Camp THP:
*******
August 13, 2003
William Schultz
CDF
6105 Airport Road
Redding, CA 96002
re: Timber Harvest Plan 2-03-040-PLA
Dear Mr. Schultz:
I am a concerned citizen who hikes extensively
throughout the North Fork American River Canyons.
It has come to my attention that there will be a
timber harvest in the Lost Camp area. I enjoy
walking down what is known as the China Trail out
of Lost Camp and continuing upstream past Texas
and Fulda Canyons. This timber harvest concerns
me on many levels.
First of all, it appears that most of the large
and medium sized trees will be cut down leaving a
plethora of small trees that will foster future
fuel loading. Further, I believe that it is
unconscionable to cut down old growth trees and
that these trees should be spared. At the very
least, a buffer of trees along the access road to
the trail and along the trail itself should not
be cut down.
Considering that the timber harvest includes
portions of the steep and rugged Blue, Texas and
Fulda Canyons it seems likely that erosion will
ensue which will negatively impact the wild and
scenic qualities of the North Fork American
River.
There is no doubt that this area is of historic
and archaeologic interest. Yet, the
archeological report is not available to the
general public. I would like to have this report
made available to me and, if it is incomplete, to
have a new archeological study undertaken.
Recently I visited the North Fork American River
via the China Trail and noticed thousands upon
thousand of ladybugs. What about the impacts on
them, as well as the Foothill Yellow-legged
Frogs, goshawks and numerous other animals living
in the area who will loose their habitat?
I was heartened to see some flagging along the
Trail indicating that it is, indeed, a trail. It
would be shameful to destroy one of the best kept
trails that I have been on in the North Fork when
so many other old historic trails have been
obliterated by logging operations.
In regard to the proposed new logging roads, it
seems that there are ample existing roads on
which to transport the dead trees. I suggest
that you use these or remove the trees by
helicopter.
As a private landowner I can appreciate the right
to do as one chooses with their land. However,
sometimes we must consider how our actions will
impact life around us and the future of the
planet on the whole. After all, we have our
national heritage to protect and preserve for
future generations.
Finally, would you please extend the comment
period so that other concerned citizens can
respond to this harvest.
Thank you for considering my comments.
Sincerely,
Catherine O'Riley
*******
That's a good one!
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