{"id":6528,"date":"2016-04-19T12:31:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T19:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/?p=6528"},"modified":"2016-04-22T15:56:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T22:56:32","slug":"ken-burton-trail-restoration-project-day-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/2016\/04\/19\/ken-burton-trail-restoration-project-day-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Burton Trail Restoration Project – Day 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, April 17, 2016, 32 volunteers converged on the Windsor\/Ventura parking area,\u00a0the\u00a0Gabrielino trailhead, in Altadena. The day, hosted by our partners at the Mount Wilson Bicycling Association<\/a>, was a complete success by all measures. It was our last scheduled group trailwork day on this restoration project, which began in earnest last Fall. In October last year, I declared that all these tools we were hauling up to the top of Brown Mountain would not be coming back down Brown Mountain. They’d be going out the bottom of the trail and the Gabrielino, once the trail was finished. Last Sunday, the tools were brought out of the bottom, as planned.<\/p>\n

In reality, the project started long before last fall. In 2013, we scouted the Gabrielino trail north of Paul Little campground, up to Oakwilde campground and the Ken Burton trail. The trail was devastated, with two major slides (think hundreds of cubic yards of earth sliding off the mountain and taking the trail with it). Before we could work on the Ken Burton trail, we had to complete the Gabrielino trail to which it connects, otherwise the two trails would be dead-ends. So our first task was to restore the Gabrielino, up and over the Brown Mountain Dam to Oakwilde\/Ken Burton trail.<\/p>\n

While our experienced volunteers could tackle the project, we were much more confident having a professional take care of it. At the same time, the Los Angeles Conservation Corps signed a contract with the Forest Service to work on the Gabrielino trail. They didn\u2019t feel comfortable repairing some of the major damage either.<\/p>\n

CORBA applied for and received a generous grant from REI for this section of the project. We applied that grant primarily to pay professional trailbuilders Bellfree Contractors for their expertise and work with the LACC. That work required Forest Service engineers to inspect and approve the work plan, the removal of chainlink fencing, and the re-routing of two sections of trail to avoid the major slides.<\/p>\n

Over winter 2014-2015, the work was completed by Bellfree and the LACC. They discovered the original trail alignment near Oakwilde Campground, a fully-benched trail segment 30 or more feet above the stream bed on the eastern side slope of the creek. There were sections of rock and cement retaining wall that we estimate were built as a part\u00a0of the Gabrielino in the 1950s. The LACC and Bellfree restored the trail through that section, rather rebuilding it along the streambed that everyone had been using before the Station Fire.<\/p>\n

This segment of trail was completed last winter, but the Forest Service wouldn’t open it to the public as it was a dead-end, and too many people had already been rescued trying to find their way through the Arroyo. The completion of that section allowed us to ask permission from the Forest Service to begin on Ken Burton trail.<\/p>\n

Oakwilde campground was devastated, and was buried under 3 feet or more of silt and sediment as the Arroyo Seco swelled well above its banks, bringing with it all the dirt and sediment from the naked hills after the station Fire.\u00a0 Only the tops of the picnic tables, now a few inches above \u201cground\u201d, are all that remain in\u00a0the campground. We\u2019re hoping the campground can be restored to a primitive hike-in backcountry camp in the future.<\/p>\n

So while we\u2019ve been working on the Ken Burton for just six months, more than two years of planning and pre-requisite projects have needed to take place.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday\u00a0we had a long list of tasks to finish Ken Burton trail. With so many volunteers to help, we completed: the complete rebuilding of three switchacks; widened and cleaned up three additional switchbacks; re-cut bench on a quarter mile of trail; rock-armored two switchbacks; installed a half-dozen drains; rock-armored and rebuilt two major washed out drainages; cleared brush from the upper trail that had grown in since we worked on it six months ago; and cleared additional brush and poison oak near the bottom, all on the Ken Burton trail.<\/p>\n

\"Installing<\/a>

Installing rock retaining walls on the Gabrielino trail<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A<\/a>

A finished rock retaining wall on the Gabrielino<\/p><\/div>\n

With the additional manpower, we also installed two rock retaining walls, and widened two sketchy segments of the newly re-established route of the Gabrielino trail, just south of Ken Burton. That segment will be a part of the Brown\/Burton\/Gabrielino trail loop, and was an important project to complete for us to feel comfortable with the trail being opened to the public.<\/p>\n

\n