Long Gulch Lake

July 17-22 – Trinity Alps Wilderness

By Dennis Houghton

The 2022 Bigfoot Trail Alliance trip to the Trinity Alps Wilderness was a success and here is a general summary of work accomplished during the trip. This was our second week-long trip of the summer.

First off, great thanks to the following people for making this trip what it was: Erik Rademacher from the Weaverville RD, Shasta-Trinity NF for help in coordinating the work plan, work support and garnering “pack support,” Jotham Barrager, Weaverville RD for providing work support for the first half of the trip, Erik Cordtz, Katy, and Lauren, packers from the Weaverville RD for hauling in food, tools and the kitchen. Also thanks to Petr Fleischmann from BFTA for keeping the crew well fed, his humor and his “tireless energy” whether working or cooking dinner. Further, thanks to the volunteers on the trip: Daniel Gilliam, Grace Ventolero, Ethan Hale, Carolina Perez, and Matt ffitch.

This trip helped to further “cement” BFTA’s partnership with the Shasta-Trinity NF and was the first time that BFTA partnered with the College of the Redwoods in Eureka by including CR students who had the option of gaining academic credit for participating.

We were fortunate to experience great weather and had quite a few wildlife sightings including a daily sighting of a bear on the slope across the lake in it’s daily feeding mode, deer, numerous birds and a squirrel that continually eluded and antagonized Erik’s dog Minnow! Also on one morning we witnessed minor rockfall on the talus slope across the lake.

Work accomplished

Long Gulch lake – Trail Jct (Fish lake, Rush Creek lake); 1 mile

• Trail clearing, brushing, and waterbar maintenance

Trail Jct – Fish lake; 2.9 mile

• 15 logouts (24-36” dbh)
• 20+ logouts (smaller diameter logs)
• Reestablish lower trail at the Jct; .25 mile
• Trail brushing and rock removal including two 1-ton boulders from center of the trail

Trail Jct – Rush Creek lake; 3 mile

• 8 logouts (24-36”)
• 15 logouts (smaller diameter logs)
• 40’ trail reroute around crater from burned stump adjacent to the trail
• 5’ multi-tier rock wall

The BFT trail section from Rush Creek lake to Fish lake is now completely “open” but could use future work reestablishing the trail tread width in many locations due to sloughing and berm which has narrowed the trail from 24” to 12” width, rebuilding outside rock wall and constructing short reroutes around areas where the 2021 River Complex fire burned tree stumps adjacent to the trail below ground level thereby creating “cratered” areas.

A few images of the work completed:

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