For the most extensive trailwork weekend of the year, 150 volunteers signed up on Saturday, the first day of the 34th annual SMM Trail Days, to help restore trails in Point Mugu State Park (Sycamore Canyon). Another fifty signed up for the following Sunday. The theme for the weekend was to restore trails damaged by the December floods.

On Saturday, the workers split into about 10 crews. Most of them worked on trails in the State Wilderness, east of the main Sycamore Canyon Trail. The CORBA crew of 17 shuttled to the bottom of Guadalasca and hiked to their work area. We were to build rideable paths in three locations where stream crossings had been destroyed. At the first location, the stream had left a culvert half exposed. Some rocks had been piled against it, making a bit of a ramp to help ride across, but it was still quite a hazard. We left some of our crew there to build up more rocks over the exposed culvert to smooth the crossing. When we hiked back down, were we ever surprised to find that they had completely covered the culvert, filling up the bottom of the stream bed to a few inches above the top of the pipe, and the width of the culvert, about 15 feet! You would never have known that the culvert was almost washed away in that flood!

Before we got to the second work site, we encountered a tree that had fallen across the trail. It had burned in the Springs Fire (May 2013) and had just fallen a few days earlier. We spent about 20 minutes pushing it to the side of the trail.

At the second site, the water had eroded the banks, leaving a vertical drop of about four feet down to the stream bed on both sides, with a gap of about 10′ between. Here, another group was to build a ramp down to the level of the stream bed, then another ramp up the other side. This work took special care because environmental regulations do not allow us to move dirt from the bank into the course of the stream, even though it’s completely dry. (This is to keep dirt from clouding the stream and ocean, interfering with the ability of fish to migrate and reproduce.) When building the ramps, the team carefully dug into the dirt, dragged it away from the bank and put it into buckets. The buckets were carried up the trail where the dirt was used to fill in ruts.

The remainder of the CORBA crew continued hiking up the trail almost another mile to the third work site. Here the flood had again destroyed the crossing, leaving a drop of about four feet at the edge of the trail. We were to realign the trail to move it a few feet away from this drop. Again, we had to carefully remove the dirt from the edge of the stream, relocating it into ruts up the trail by way of buckets.

The first and third team finished before the end of the work day, so they went to the aid of the second team. They had the biggest project by far; however, there was only so much that could be done at once due to the confined area of the work.

At about 2:00 pm, everyone hiked back down the trail to catch the shuttles back to the staging/camping/bath/eating area at the Danielson Multiuse camp. We spent the afternoon relaxing and chatting. Meanwhile, the State Park Staff volunteers were stoking the wood-fired grill and making other preparations for the barbecue dinner, consisting of tri-tip, chicken, veggie burgers, baked beans, salad and garlic toast.

In line for the barbecue dinner

Dinner was followed by the raffle, where almost everyone (and perhaps everyone) won an outdoor recreational objet de swag of some sort. The people whose tickets were drawn first won some really, really good prizes!

View the photos of Saturday trailwork, the R&R area and barbecue dinner in CORBA’s photo gallery.

The work crew when the ramps are finished

The work day on Sunday is always a lot smaller than Saturday, so we broke up into just three crews. The CORBA crew of 10 returned to Guadalasca to finish off the middle stream crossing. It was a bit of a race to get it finished by 11:40, as the shuttle was to pick us up at noon at the bottom of the trail, but we did it, just scraping by! We moved a huge amount of dirt, digging out those two ramps, and filled in a lot of ruts on the nearby trail.

Both days, dozens of mountain bikers passed through our work area. Most of them thanked us for our work as they went by, recognizing that they wouldn’t have to carry their bikes across the streams when we were finished. A few stopped to ask how they could find out about future trailwork events so they could help out too.

View the photos of Sunday trailwork on Guadalasca in CORBA’s photo gallery.

Back at the staging area, we had a lunch of leftovers, followed by another raffle drawing for Sunday’s volunteers. We departed the park about 1:30 – time for a shower!

Thanks to the CORBA volunteers and the many others who put on and attended this event, helping to keep these popular State Park trails in great condition!

Once a year we have an opportunity to work on the trails and then BBQ and camp at Danielson Ranch in Pt Mugu State Park. It is opened annually for the Santa Monica Trail Days! This is a unique opportunity to work on the trails that we enjoy so much in Sycamore Canyon, and the Saturday workday is followed by a BBQ and prizes, with free camping available on Friday and/or Saturday night. This is hands down the best day to get in some trail maintenance work! Camping is optional; you may leave with the escort after the BBQ. There will be trailwork projects on both Saturday and Sunday. Sign up for one or both! Pre-registration is requested by April 21st so we’ll know how many people to prepare for.

Schedule at a glance

Friday night April 24 – arrive for overnight camping (optional). Bagels and hot beverages supplied Saturday morning for campers.

Saturday April 25 – Trailwork, barbecue dinner, prize give-away. Bring your own lunch. Optional overnight camping. Bagels and hot beverages supplied Sunday morning for campers.

Sunday April 26 – Trailwork, prize give-away. Bring your own lunch.

You can volunteer to help out on Saturday, Sunday, or both.

BRING: LUNCHES, BEVERAGES, SNACKS AND WATER. Tools and instruction on using them are provided.

WEAR: Gloves, hat, long pants, protective clothing, and work boots or sturdy shoes.

REGISTRATION: Advance registration is required for the activities shown below, and appreciated by April 21st!

Saturday Registration: http://www.meetup.com/CORBAmtb/events/221130358/
Sunday Registration: http://www.meetup.com/CORBAmtb/events/221130376/

TRAILWORK: Saturday and/or Sunday. Help out with one or both! There are also opportunities to help out in the camp instead of trailwork.

CAMPING: Free camping Friday and/or Saturday nights for volunteers at the Danielson Multi-use Area located under the sycamores and oaks in the heart of Point Mugu State Park. Bring your own gear.

DINNER: Sat. Night Barbecue Free FOR VOLUNTEERS. Bring appetizers and beverages.

PRIZES: Thank-you prize give-aways will be held Saturday after dinner and Sunday after trailwork.

VEHICLE ACCESS: You will be able to caravan into and out of the park by vehicle only at these few designated times:

ARRIVE: Friday – 5 pm and 7 pm. Saturday – 7:30 am and 4:30 pm Sunday – 7:30 am

DEPART: Saturday – 4 pm and about 9 pm. Sunday – 8 am and 2:30 pm

Full details and camping/dining details are also provided on the registration pages.

The New Millennium Loop trail system in Calabasas is very popular among mountain bikers and others, but it has very little if any maintenance since the trails were built a number of years ago as part of The Oaks gated community. In general, they have held up pretty well, but nature is taking its relentless toll.

Recently, high-schoolers with the SoCal High School Cycling League, with help from CORBA and the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, have been helping to restore these trails. On January 31, they helped complete a new trail along the Historic Loop segment that bypasses the swamp. This past Saturday, February 28th, ten kids from Calabasas and Newbury Park mountain bike clubs and 5 young sailors from Naval Base Ventura County, with guidance from CORBA and Trails Council trail crew leaders, repaired about 0.8 miles of the Bark Park Trail.

Young sailors working on an upslope switchback drainage

With the heavy rains in December, ruts started to develop along the trail and a sinkhole about 6′ long and 3-4′ deep appeared. We were going to fix that and address the drainage issues on the trail above it that caused it to appear. Sometime in the couple of weeks before our trailwork day, someone filled in the sinkhole, saving us some time, but we still needed to widen and level the trail around where it had been. Also, the tread had to be repaired so the water would run off it, rather than down it and enlarging the ruts.

Over the next few hours, about 15-20 drainage nicks were built and parts of the trail were restored to their original flat but slightly out-sloped state, to enable rainwater to run straight off the outside edge. Three switchback drains were also cleared of vegetation and silt to restore them to their original condition.

When we were finished, we moved to nearby Sharky’s for a hearty lunch of Mexican food.

You can see more photos of the event in our Bark Park trailwork photo gallery. Thanks to the high-schoolers and sailors who came out to help – everyone did a great job!