Beer Pine anyone? It's the new game invented by our summer trail crew while occupying themselves late into the night at the Smith Lake Base Camp. "It's like beer pong, but with lodge pole pine cones," said Carroll as he ate his lunch of sandwich and Cheez-Its, covered in sweat and dirt, sitting next to his trail crew cohorts. Carroll leads our summer trail crew which consists of himself, Max and Little Brad. On occasion they are joined by Cosmo, Tyler, Evan, Greg, Ron, Brett, myself, and many others who either make the trek to volunteer with them for the day or simply pick up a Pulaski after a chance encounter on the trail. The boys are out there five days a week working on the rocky re-rout on Smith Lake which is replacing the old degraded trail. The work they've done is incredible and the views from the ridge are fantastic. Smith Lake can be seen on one side while the entire Mohawk valley can be seen on the other. I've biked up to the work site several times to get the scoop on how the trail is going, deliver cookies, and get any good tid bits on the exciting night-life at basecamp. Spirits are high at Camp Quincy and all is going well there other than the occasional visit from a local bear, which the guys have named Bronco. The skinny on the trail is as follows. Trail is 100% brushed and about 60% complete overall. What does that mean? Well, you can walk the whole thing now, but only about 60% is really ready for prime time. Read More »
We've finished brushing on the new section and 3 of the switch backs have been constructed. Our crew will continue work on this section until the snow falls and we'll be working here the Sunday of the Epic weekend with as many volunteers as we can muster. On the team note, Carroll has temporarily left us to go off to school for the fall(we miss you Carroll!). However, Cosmo, the SBTS Spiritual Leader has stepped up to take a larger role to fill Carroll's place. In addition to giving sage guidance, Cosmo practices his spirituality by levitating boulders into place. I joined Cosmo, Little Brad, and Max this week for 4 days of trail work and a proper camp out. Reality check: trail work is a lot harder when you do it more than one day. I would like to give a personal salute to our guys for doing such a great job day in and day out, because it isn't easy. You guys are strong and awesome. I would also like to give a shout out to the Gray Eagle lodge for their continued support throughout the summer. 
This was the second scheduled Trail Daze on Gray Eagle Creek trail. Most of the twenty eight folks that showed up had attended the first work day on May 15. Most everyone knew the hard work they were in for ahead of time. Judy Schaber, from the Plumas Forest had a load of gravel, lumber and rebar delivered to the trail head, so we were ready to continue turnpiking the 250' section of damaged trail bed. The crew worked efficiently, breaking off into groups of four and five. Group detail included: culvert digging, rock excavation, rock crushing, peeler pole installation, pole drilling, rebar pounding, felt paper lining, rock placement, gravel shoveler, and gravel hauler. Lucky for us we had three motorized wheel-barrels on hand, one of which was Jim Jacobsen's personal machine. This was an incredible effort on everyone's part. Thank you, and we hope people can enjoy riding this trail for generations to come. In all, 300 hours of volunteer trail work went into operation "Turnpike". We thank all the volunteers for their support and hard work. Also, a special thanks to Sac Brew for providing the refreshments and to Downieville Grocery for supplying all the sandwich materials. 
