Turn Around, Don’t Go Around!
Posted: June 20, 2022 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: maintenance, trees, turn around Leave a commentThis is the theme of this website but I need to promote it more often.
If you come across an obstacle you can not get over while staying on the trail, turn around and go home, do not drive off the trail to go around the obstacle. It could be a tree, a huge snow drift, a rock garden, whatever. Turn Around, Don’t Go Around!
This past Father’s Day weekend, I was out on our trails and found many, many trees down across our trails. More than a few of these trees had been driven by many vehicles.
I had my electric chainsaw with me, not to do trail work and clear trees but just in case something fell while I was in and had to get out. Well, I did as much tree clearing as the one battery I had with me would allow. I did go back the next day with a freshly charged battery and did what I could.
Here is a tree down across the Hobbit Trail (16E76). A few rigs had already driven around this tree.
This one required a snatch block to get the right angle to get the tree off the trail once cut.
I figured that would be it as at this point of the season many rigs should have driven this trail. But not too far down the same trail was another. This one was also driven around.
It could be dragged a little further to the right but it is clear of the trail.
There were more trees but I didn’t get pictures of all of them. I also left many trees across the trail that were easily driven over and not causing vehicles to go around. The tree below was on the Middle Fork Trail in Blackwood Canyon. The blue & pink tags were for an 200 mile endurance run taking place.
Again, I didn’t get all the photos, before and after, for each and every tree.
Before only…
No saw required, just grab and drag. With the rig, not by hand!
I’ll contact the Forest Service to get someone out to block off the side trail created here.
Before only, this on is dangerous, so I dragged it down.
Most of that was Saturday the 18th. Long story but I had to go back in on Sunday the 19th. On the way out, I did some work on the Rubicon that I passed on doing on Saturday. This is just after the turn at Forest Road 03-04.
My Kobalt 80-volt electric saw worked wonders. Especially after putting a fresh chain on it. I was working the two smaller trees and then the bigger one, going back and forth. After cutting trees on the Hobbit Trail, I wasn’t sure how many cuts I had left. I was about two and a half cuts short of what I wanted to accomplish. From now on, if I bring the saw, I’ll bring both batteries!
If you’re headed in to the Springs, please cut this one back a few more feet. Thanks. Below is what my saw took off those three trees above before the battery was drained.
It ended up being a very productive weekend out on our trails.
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Rubicon Ronin
Rubicon Trail Conditions – May 20, 2022
Posted: May 20, 2022 Filed under: Access, Travel | Tags: snow, trees, water, wet Leave a commentIn short, the trail is still very wet. Lots of snow along the Tahoe National Forest from Miller Lake out to what I call Potato Patch.
Six rigs went in from the Tahoe side Friday morning at 10:30. It was a late start but we are all retired so who cares about time. At the bottom of Cadillac Hill we turned on to the Long Lake Trail to check conditions. We didn’t get back to the staging area until 7pm.
The usual tourist shot before we went down Cadillac.
Once on the Long Lake Trail, we found minimal trees down along the trail. But we did clear off most of them.
I would suggest staying off the trail until the big snow melt slows down. If you do go, please tread lightly on the wet trail.
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Rubicon Ronin
Closure dates changed, not communicated
Posted: May 11, 2022 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: closed, closure, El Dorado County, helicopter Leave a commentDue to the weather over the Sierra these past few days, El Dorado County has pushed back plans to use a helicopter to fly in material to be used to maintain the Rubicon Trail. The new closure dates are May 11th through May 15th. That includes the upcoming weekend of the 14th and 15th.
A photo from a previous helicopter delivery to the Rubicon Trail:
From the El Dorado County “Parks” page:
https://www.edcgov.us/Government/Parks
Rubicon update: Due to the upcoming weather on Sunday and Monday the maintenance project has been pushed to May 11th. Unfortunately we will need to close the Rubicon Trail through the weekend. The trail will be closed May 11th -May 15th. We are sorry for the inconvenience, and are working diligently to get this project done before Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you for your cooperation.
Here’s my problem with this change, it was not properly communicated down to the actual users that need to know this information.
El Dorado County has a Rubicon Trail page on their website. At the time of this writing, that page has absolutely no information on the change of the closure dates. In order for the users to find the closure information, users must go to the ‘Parks’ page of El Dorado County, as quoted above.
https://www.edcgov.us/Rubicon/
For the record, it is also not posted on the website of the one Rubicon Trail specific advocacy group, the Rubicon Trail Foundation.
https://www.rubicontrailfoundation.org
Users should not have to search to learn about the current conditions of the Rubicon Trail. Major changes, such as temporary closures, and even minor pieces of information, should be sent out by the agency closing the trail, not just posted. OHV advocacy groups should latch on to those press releases and forward them to local clubs and post the information on OHV forums, let alone post them on their own website.
Every year, tens of thousands of dollars are donated to OHV advocacy groups. If those groups and agencies fail to inform you of critical information about your local trail, specifically the world-famous Rubicon Trail, are you getting your money’s worth?
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Rubicon Ronin
Closed for Maintenance
Posted: April 18, 2022 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: closure, helicopter Leave a commentThe Rubicon Trail will be closed from Monday May 9th through Friday May 13th in order to safely fly helicopters in order to deliver materials needed for trail maintenance. This closure will only affect the El Dorado County portion of the trail. Tahoe side access will still be available to the users.
From El Dorado County…
The Rubicon Trail will be closed from 5/9-5/13/22 due to the work done during the Helicopter Project to improve the trail. Please continue to check the parks website for updates as weather may change the dates for the project. Thank you.
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Rubicon Ronin
Rubicon Trail Q&As, WWDD?
Posted: April 9, 2022 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: closure, communications, maintenance Leave a commentThere is currently a severe lack of communication among those groups, agencies and individuals with an interest in the Rubicon Trail.
I provided an extensive list of questions to El Dorado County, after Vickie Sanders offered to put together the meeting. She reached out to all of the groups and agencies involved and asked those questions but did not get responses from everyone she asked.
Below are the actual questions and answers provided by El Dorado County at the Rubicon Trail meeting two weeks ago documenting the answers to those questions, by each group/agency.
The questions are in black, the answers from the respective agency are in blue. Note that RTF and FOTR did not respond. I have learned that RTF has answers to the questions but didn’t get them to El Dorado before the meeting. They did share those answers verbally at the meeting. I have since asked for those answers to be given to El Dorado County to be able to publish all of the answers together. El Dorado has not received anything from RTF. Although FOTR does still exist, we are told, FOTR and El Dorado County are not getting along, not talking, not planning any maintenance efforts together.
Everyone involved in the Rubicon Trail, regardless of their capacity, needs to get over any and all personal differences with others and do what is best for the trail. There are multiple individuals telling me that will no longer communicate with ‘that person’ or ‘that agency’. To me, that is unprofessional and is not in the best interest of the trail.
It might step on a few toes, but I will ask the question: “What would Dennis (Mayer) Do?” We all wore the yellow wrist bands, “WWDD?”, some for years after his passing. Some of us still have a yellow band in our rigs. Dennis kept it calm and down the center, regardless of how he felt personally. We need to channel Dennis and get back to working together.
An eight-page list of things to do was recently provided to those involved with the management of the Rubicon Trail. Someone needs to take the lead and get started on working on those issues. Let’s get FOTR back to where it was when that group literally stopped the trail from getting closed in 2000. RTF needs to work with Placer and/or the Tahoe NF and the Basin to get an adopt-a-trail/rolling dip/campsite going. The TNF needs to involve users in their maintenance decisions and efforts.
Maybe we turn this around to where the users demand to adopt spots along the trail. Maybe OHV clubs need to demand a list of maintenance items for the season. Maybe the users demand that the decision-making process not only be made public, but that every decision includes the public.
Do we need a threat of closure to bring back cooperation and user involvement? If so, it’s closer than you think.
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Rubicon Ronin
The 'Other' Rubicon 