The Dirt On Trail Operations T
he TRTA’s Trail Operations program is excited to dig into another trail season maintaining and improving the Tahoe Rim Trail. We’re still feeling the impacts of the COVID pandemic on our operations and are planning on implementing our work this summer with smaller but more frequent volunteer workdays to ensure safety protocols can be followed. We hope to be able to ease these restrictions later in the summer and host larger volunteer projects, maybe even return to one of our favorite projects – a big trail work campout! Highlights for the 2021 field season on the TRTA include major projects at the Brockway Summit Trailhead, on the TRT north of Tunnel Creek, close to Ward Creek, and in and adjacent to Desolation Wilderness. All of this will be tackled in addition to our annual maintenance work.
We’re starting our summer at Brockway Summit. We’ll be working on the section of trail on the west side of the road. The current pullout allows for cars to stop along several hundred feet of roadside. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear entry to the trail and much of the hillside connecting the trail to the parking area has become a web of paths spreading out and impacting vegetation, and contributing to increased erosion. We’ll be stabilizing the hillside and improving signage to direct users. We are looking forward to the permitting process progressing to allow construction of a trailhead just north of this road pullout at the top of Highway 267 in the coming years. We’re advocating for bathrooms with water at this trailhead to not only improve the experience for our users, but to cut down on the significant amount of discarded water
containers unfortunately left behind by users. Volunteers may join us starting in June. North of Tunnel Creek our team will be addressing erosion issues and the switchbacks after the trail passes Diamond Peak and travels to the east side of the Carson Range. The trail features a series of long switchbacks as it drops elevation to connect with the Spooner Backcountry at Tunnel Creek. The switchbacks need serious love as they’ve eroded down in some places by more than a foot. We’ll be reconstructing the switchbacks, improving drainage, and armoring areas of the trail with rock to ensure this section of trail holds up better for the future. Our work at Ward Creek is in response to the USFS and partners implementing a muchneeded forest health project in the area. This project is utilizing parts of the TRT constructed using an old Forest Service road as access for their heavy machinery for logging and thinning. Heavy machinery and trail users don’t mix, so the TRTA and USFS are working to realign the trail to a better location that keeps the TRT away from this USFS project and also addresses trail deficiencies on the old alignment. A win-win solution! Public workdays will start in July. We have another busy year in Desolation Wilderness on the schedule in 2021. With our partners at the Pacific Crest Trail Association,
a walk 1981
Dedicated community members form a group to implement Glenn Hampton’s vision of a 150-mile loop following the ridgetops of Lake Tahoe. 4
TRAIL BLAZER | Summer 2021 | Tahoe Rim Trail Association
