Just to confirm, we’ll be working on the Bear Springs trail tomorrow morning at 9. It might be raining lightly, so bring rain gear. Meet at corner of S Mt. Shasta Blvd and Old McCloud Rd at 8:45 for a caravan to the work site. Or, from S Mt. Shasta Blvd, turn east on Old McCloud, go 2.5 miles and cross the RR tracks, continue 1.4 miles further, then take a left on Forest Road 40N76 (orange tape is tied to the brush there). Go straight about ¼ mile (slowly uphill), then when the road forks, stay right and go uphill. The meeting place is about ¼ mile ahead of that. The road’s a little rough and there’s some residual snow, but it’s not too bad (I drove it this afternoon).
We’ll be working on the new “Bear Springs” segment of Gateway Phase II this Saturday. If you want it easy, meet me (JH) at the corner of Old McCloud Rd. and South Mt. Shasta Blvd. at about 8:50 am (just across the street from Seven Suns Café and next to the old gas station). We’ll depart there just before 9 am and drive up Old McCloud together in a caravan. Takes about 10 minutes to the trail.
If you go on your own: Take Old McCloud Road / FR 31 east from S Mt Shasta Blvd for almost 2-1/2 miles to the old RR track crossing. Continue on FR 31 another 1-1/2 miles beyond the old RR tracks then turn left on FR40N76. Banners have been hung at this left turn. Go straight about ¼ mile, then take the R turn up a somewhat rutted road for another 3/8 mile, where you’ll find a bunch of people waiting.
Bring water and gloves; we’ll have the tools. Be a part of creating a new trail!
If you think the MSTA board has been sitting on their butts the past 18 months, YOU’RE WRONG!
SLT hosts the Mt. Shasta Trail Association on Tuesday evening, April 20 from 7pm to 8:30pm – presenting this year’s plans and projects for Mt. Shasta area trail construction and improvements. Register on Zoom. Watch live on Facebook, or join the Zoom by registering at https://us02web.zoom.us/…/reg…/WN_p5CASFsoRPmQ2MpUZGrW1A
Tune in to find out just what’s been happening out on the trails! And tell your friends.
Hordes of people have been pestering us for information about MSTA’s extremely popular volunteer trail work days, and we are red-faced about not providing regular updates. But today, for a limited time, we’re offering the following outline of upcoming trail work days and locations:
April 24—finish work on new trails in the Bear Springs area (or MX if snow still present at Bear Springs access).
May 1—CANCELLED due to conflict with Invasive Weed Pull event, and unavailability of trail work organizers.
May 8– tread and rock work on the improved Castle Lake to Heart Lake Trail, if snow has melted.
May 15—more Castle Lake to Heart Lake Trail work.
May 29, June 12, and June 26—It’s too early to know what the heck we’ll do, but it’s likely we’ll work on newly cut trails on Gateway II.
Work days typically begin at 9 am. Sign-in is first, followed by a brief safety talk (don’t hit your neighbor in the head with a pickaxe), then we get specific instructions on the trail work, split into teams and get it done. We try to be done by 12:30, but you can stay all day if you’re a glutton for punishment. Directions to each work day will be sent out via email, Facebook, and the MSTA website (mountshastatrailassociation.org). And don’t forget that you’re going to have FUN, whether you like it or not.
Please share this information with friends and then bring them along to help! The more volunteers we have, the more we save on trail construction, meaning we can build more miles of trail.
Sorry for the inadequate and late communication about this work day. We have reconn’d the two sites we wanted to work on (Castle Lake to Heart Lake Trail and Gateway II near Bear Springs) and they both have too much snow to address. So, the best thing is to cancel this work day and look to the next scheduled date, which is Saturday, April 24. By then maybe we will have figured out what the heck we want to do. Thanks for your patience.
Yesterday, we planted about 500 daffodils around the Spring Hill Trailhead. Many thanks to the 14 volunteers who showed up to help, including one very young, enthusiastic gardener. Since it’s so late in the season, the bulbs may not bloom this year. Opinions differed on this, so you’ll just have to visit the trail to see for yourself. We gave the balance of the bulbs to Lorie Saunders for the Beautification Committee to plant in the triangle and median strip for the city. Even though these non-native, ornamental flowers don’t help the pollinators or the soil or the little animals, they look pretty and thus cheer up the large animals who have been trapped inside for much of the pandemic.
OK, OK! I’m not smart enough to know that you shouldn’t plant non-native daffodils at the Gateway Trailhead or on USFS property. I’m a doctor, Jim, not a biologist. If I can ascertain the appropriateness of planting at the Spring Hill Trailhead (which most people seem to think is acceptable) we’ll do that at 1:30 tomorrow.
Early this afternoon, I got a call from Eva Moll at Mercy Hospice. They have leftover daffodils from their fundraiser that are starting to sprout. She asked if MSTA wanted some to plant at the Gateway Trailhead and I said, “Sure!”
Well, I picked them up and found that there are about 1000 of them. Yes, 1000. So I think we should plant some at Spring Hill and some at the Gateway Trailhead.
If you want to help, meet me at the Spring Hill Trail parking lot at 1:30 on Saturday, Feb. 27. We can put 8 or 10 in each hole we dig so we’ll get a big show of color. If we have 6-10 volunteers, we’ll split into two groups, with the second group going to Gateway. Shouldn’t take long and it’ll be fun. Who doesn’t like planting flowers? Well, maybe there’s someone.
