25 August 2013 | Kerby, OR -- Last friday three Siskiyou Mountain Club volunteers woke up as early as 3am for a full day of clipping in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. Why did they get up so early?
The Babyfoot Lake Trailhead is a couple of hours away, and the project site is a tough four-mile hike in from there. And after clipping brush for six hours, an even more arduous hike out.
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The volunteers were busy attacking a 1200' section of thick brush along the Emily Cabin Trail between Babyfoot Lake and the Chetco River. The work site is hard to each, and far from water sources, but that didn't stop Tom, Sam and Micah from waking up before dawn to take a bite out of this section that plagues hikers.
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"The road bed is easily discernible, but the brush is in places six feet high," says SMC Executive Director Gabe Howe. "I'm really sick of walking through it with my crews to the Chetco," where trail conditions are even more volatile.
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SMC crews get an early start so they can beat the heat and capitalize on daylight, instead of hiking and working in the hottest part of the day in an environment with no shade.
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The crew was back home by 9pm. That's a long day, and our volunteers aren't your typical Saturday morning do-gooders. There's still about eight hundred feet in this section that needs to be worked.
