TRAIL OPERATIONS

The Dirt On Trail Operations

The 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.

Project Leader Bob Anderson assesses the TRT near Tunnel Creek. The TRTA plans to return this section of trail back to a standard 18 to 24-inch trail.

we plan to have up to six weeks of crews working in this incredibly popular wilderness area. We’ll be addressing issues with the trail tread, improving drainage, rebuilding structures, removing down trees, installing new signage, working on a bridge crossing, and improving access for equestrians.

A final highlight for the 2021 trail season is our annual trail maintenance work. Trail maintenance is such a short phrase to describe a huge portion of the work our Trail Operations team tackles annually. Each year as the snow melts from the trail, the team aims to assess every one of the 200-miles in the TRT system to see how it faired over the winter. Based on the assessments, the team then removes trees that are down along the trail, clears drainages, removes overgrown brush, and evaluates major construction needed that we’ll add to the work schedule to address or, if necessary, work to obtain permits so that the project can be completed in the following season(s).

This year’s work calendar is ambitious and wouldn’t be possible without you! We’d like to thank all of our incredible crew leaders who plan and guide this work, the wonderful community members that volunteer to dig in and help out, our land managers and trail partners, and our supporters who provide grants and donations to allow us to implement this work. It is a team effort and we are excited to see you all on the trail again in 2021. Our public workdays kick off on National Trails Day, June 5th. If you’d like to build your piece of the trail, check out the TRTA website to register. Erosion issues to be addressed at Brockway West Trailhead.

through the years: a TRTA timeline

1982 1983 1984

Tahoe Rim Trail Fund is granted non-profit 501(c)3 status and holds first official meeting on March 23.

Equestrians scout the proposed loop. First Crew Leader Training held June 4th. Environmental documents are completed and approved for trail construction to start near Luther Pass.