Bear Creek Trail, Trinity Alps Wilderness

May 17-19, 2023 Volunteer Work Trip

By Dennis Houghton, Crew Leader (all photos by Dennis too!)

We had a great trip to the Canyon Creek drainage, camping at Ripstein Campground and doing trail maintenance & logouts on the Bear Creek trail section of the Bigfoot trail this past week. Temperatures hovered in the mid-to-high 80’s and the amount of water draining out of the mountains was impressive and somewhat daunting. The goal was to clear the roughly 6-mile trail from the Bear Creek trailhead to the ridge separating Canyon Creeks from the Stewart Fork drainage, but we were stopped by a creek crossing about 4 miles from the trailhead, which proved to be unsafe. The snowline hovered around the 5,000-6,000 foot level and will definitely keep the creeks running strong throughout the summer.

Hitting the Trail

On Wednesday and Thursday, twelve volunteers worked a 4-mile section of the Bear Creek trail clearing fallen trees and reestablishing trail tread in various sections by clearing the slough & debris from the trail. In all, volunteers completed 4 logouts in the 28-40” diameter range and numerous smaller logouts along the trail. Smaller trees, branches and shrubs encroaching on the trail were cut back or removed and roughly 300-400 feet of trail bench reconstructed.

On Friday, the crew worked a half day and completed clearing work & trail tread work on a 1-mile section of the East Fork Lake trail. The trail was an old mining trail that ran “straight up the mountain” at grades pushing 25-35% in some places.

Thank you volunteers!

Thanks to everyone participating on the trip, including BFTA “veterans”: Les Gould, Karen Orso, Petr Fleischmann, Siggi Graeve, Liz Houghton and BFTA “newcomers”: Rob Ammerman, Ryan Batjiaka, Larry Buwalda, Shannon Underhill, Valerie Norton and Derek Tremaine.

Also, thanks to Erik Fleitz and Jotham Barragar from the Shasta-Trinity, Weaverville Ranger District for providing their guidance and expertise in trail maintenance, and guidance & training in completing the logouts.