Placer to start work on Monday, August 25th!

Placer County has announced that they (their contractor) will start working on the Rubicon Trail on Monday, August 25th. The report is they plan to work Monday through Friday for the first two weeks and then maybe Monday through Thursday and ten hour shifts after that.

There are several aspects to this work and the details of what is getting done and when that work is being done has not been released.

You’ve all seen the HUGE pile of fill dirt in the staging area. That dirt needs to be strained for large rock and then delivered to the low spots along the trail between Miller Lake and the turn at the intersection of the Rubicon and Barker Pass Road (Forest Road 03-04). This means there will be heavy equipment all along the trail. They might even be using Blackwood Canyon and Barker Pass Road (Forest Road 03-04) to access the Rubicon.

The contractor will also be creating 35 water features, rolling dips/water bars/drains, from Miller to the turn. These will need to be hardened with rock. Volunteers will be needed to place the rock on these features. The rock will be delivered by the contractor.

The contractor will be delivering rock to the Potato Patch and the old mud hole about a mile west of the intersection mentioned above. This will be done by the Mooroka tractor. That is a tracked, four yard, dump truck, on loan (lease?) from El Dorado County. Rumor has it, that operation (moving rock to fill the hole) will take a month on its own, with 3-4 trips a day.

Expect delays as the tractor above and the HUGE haul trucks will take up most of the trail. See more images in the Photojournal “Filling the Holes”. Please be patient as they work to help us keep our trail open.

I believe that the goal is to finish the work by October 15th.