This past Saturday, March 22, roughly 60 volunteers converged on Wildflower Park for a short hike to the work area at the bottom of the new trail. By noon, the volunteers had built the 0.25-mile long Castillo Trail that now connects Wildwood Trail in the canyon to Castillo Circle on the mesa above.

The Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency (COSCA) rangers had previously removed the chaparral and marked the route of the trail with little orange flags. It was up to the workers to dig out the dirt to make an even trail tread. The trail crossed a steep hillside, so there was a lot of dirt to be moved along much of it’s length. The route included two nearly 180-degree turns, necessitating a switchback and a climbing turn. Each of these features took 6-8 people all morning to complete.

After the work was finished, the crew returned to Wildflower Park to enjoy a barbecue lunch prepared for the volunteers.

Steve Messer, CORBA’s president, brought along his GoPro and made a time-lapse video of the trail building, and of the first ride down on his new hard-tail 29er. You can see the video on YouTube or Vimeo.

You can also view the photo gallery of the trailwork.

This past Sunday, 12 CORBA volunteers and two COSCA rangers headed up the “Space Mountain” section of the Los Robles Trail in Thousand Oaks to fix up the 1.7-miles long switchbacks part of this singletrack trail before the winter rains worsen the ruts.

Clearing slough from the trail

By all standards, the work was a tremendous success! We cleared slough from 230 yards of trail, installed about a dozen new drainage nicks, cleaned debris out of about a dozen existing drainages, and whacked out about 20 stumps.

From the top of the switchbacks, we continued another a short distance to fix the falling slough on 230 yards of trail. Slough is rocks, dirt and other debris that falls on the trail from above. So much had fallen that half to 2/3 of the trail was covered, forcing people to the very outside of the trail. We could see many tracks where people had ridden off the edge and possibly taken a tumble. With the trail now returned to it’s full width, that hazard is much reduced.

Next, we headed back down to the bottom, installing new drainage nicks as we went, and hacking out stumps that had become hazards in or near the edge of the trail. Finally, as we got to the lower half where we had installed drainages in previous years, we cleaned out those that were becoming clogged with silt so they would continue to be effective in diverting rainwater off the trail.

You can see the volunteers working in the photo gallery of Sunday’s trailwork day.

After the traditional prize give-away to thank the volunteers, CORBA treated everyone to lunch at Baja Fresh.

Thanks to all the volunteers who came out to help, and the COSCA Staff who joined in to support us!

Join CORBA on a rare Sunday workday as we fix up CORBA’s adopted trail, Space Mountain (Los Robles Trail West) in Thousand Oaks. We’ll be doing treadwork – clearing silt out of the drainages – starting at the top and working back down. This is a favorite mountain biking trail, especially in the winter when other trails are muddy. Our work on Sunday will help keep the water off the trail and open to riding next winter!

After the trailwork is finished, CORBA will have prizes for some (or all) lucky volunteers, and treat you to lunch afterwards.
No experience is necessary to help out with trailwork. Tools and instructions on how to use them safely and effectively will be provided. Children must be over 7-years old to attend, and children under 14 must be constantly and directly supervised by their parent or guardian who brought them. And you don’t need to be a mountain biker to help out – Everybody is welcome! For more information on trailwork in general, visit our trail crew web page.

Be sure to wear protective clothing (sturdy shoes, long pants and sleeves, hat, golves) and bring snacks, sunscreen and water. CORBA will provide the tools and training.

We request that you pre-register online so that we’ll know how many tools to provide. Remember, by registering here, CORBA will treat you to lunch afterwards, and enter you in the drawing for mountain biking prizes!

CORBA’s thank-you lunch will be after trailwork ends at 1:00 pm, so bring some snacks to tide you over.

Meeting location and details are on the online registration page.

About 120 volunteers arrived at 7:30 Saturday morning, October 19, to help build a new trail in the Western Plateau area of Thousand Oaks for the 23rd Annual COSCA Trailwork Day. Eleven of these volunteers had registered through CORBA. The Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council made a huge contribution as most of Saturday’s 12 crew leaders were members of their Trail Crew. Other crew leaders were from CORBA or were COSCA rangers.

Workers hike up the new trail to their work areas. People on the distant ridge show where the trail will go.

The new trail starts 2 miles from the new Hill Canyon bridge near Santa Rosa County Park. Volunteers hiked in, or caught a ride with the 4×4 vehicles that drove the tools to the new trailhead. After picking up their tools and learning about safety during trailwork, the dozen teams of about 10 headed up to their designated work areas.Most of the new trail is on soft, crumbly dirt on a hillside with a gentle cross-slope. The grass and chaparral had already been cut away, so most of the work involved scraping the dirt to remove the last stubbles of grass and making a 5% outslope so water would run across and off it, rather than down the middle, cutting a rut.

However, there some switchbacks and rocks that were in the way, so some crews had rock bars to help them along.

Mark Langton, CORBA’s president, takes the first run down the partially completed trail. Workers on the ridge above indicate where the trail goes.

The new trail, yet to be named, climbs the east end of the  southern ridge above the Western Plateau. In many places it is quite close to the edge and so provides amazing views of both Hill Canyon and the rest of the Western Plateau.Everybody headed back about 11:15 to get to the thank-you lunch, barbecued by COSCA rangers, and the prize giveaway. As always, the rangers did a superb job with lunch. About a dozen people won prizes, including the grand prize of a new Giant mountain bike.

The photo gallery shows many of the volunteers on the new trail, and gives you an idea of how some of the views will look. Why not go through them to see if you recognize anybody!?

Come out and join the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency (COSCA), CORBA, the Santa Monica Trails Council and other volunteers for the 23rd Annual COSCA Trailwork Day in Thousand Oak. We will be working on new trails in the Conejo Canyons Open Space (aka Western Plateau).

COSCA will treat participants to lunch afterwards and have a drawing for some great door prizes, including CST tires contributed by CORBA.

For full details and to register, see our registration page. We hope to see a good turnout of local mountain bikers at this event!