Wind drops trees

This week brought the beginning of fall. The trees are changing colors, the temperatures are dropping and the bikini Jeep tops are being swapped out for a full soft top or hard top. Also, a huge wind storm blew across California and in to the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

I was headed to the Rubicon trail and knew it would be windy, so I made sure I had my chainsaw, saw bag and that it was running well before I left the house. I am sure glad I did.

Around 11am, the wind hit. I was out the Long Lake Trail. The great thing the wind brings is a bug free afternoon. Going up Cadillac was a breeze (sorry, easy pun).

I was well on my way home when I came across a down tree west of Miller Lake. It wasn’t blocking the whole trail but I felt large or at least tall rigs might have an issue with it, so I broke out the saw. It didn’t take much but cleared the snag from over the trail and the debris from the trail itself.

Please remember to always wear proper protection when running a saw: hearing, glasses, gloves, long pants, sturdy closed toe shoes. To take it all the way, you should also wear a helmet and chaps.

Feeling like I’d done something positive for the community, I went on my way. It was getting late and it had been a long day. I left the staging area just before 9am and it was now after three in the afternoon. I had a meeting in Reno at 6pm and it was going to be close.

Then I came across another down tree truly blocking the entire trail.

This one was between water bar 14 and 13. It was much larger than the first one, and blocking a wider section of the trail. Out came the saw again. And I cut it in to many manageable size pieces.

The nice thing about a tree that has fallen across an OHV trail is that the tree is usually rotten or extremely dry making it very easy to cut. I pushed the section of tree to the sides of the trail. It may be necessary to further remove the sections from the trail but there is a sizable path between the sections now.

Always go prepared. If you come across an issue like this and you can’t clear the trail, turn around, don’t go around.

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