[pct-l] Fwd: Shasta Co. Redding Fire Trail Closure

[Georgi Heitman]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Georgi Heitman <bobbnweav at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 10:01 AM
Subject: Shasta Co. Redding Fire Trail Closure
Greetings from FireFly:
I live in Old Station, Shasta Co.immediately north of Lassen Nat'l Pk.
Just a heads-up for speedy hikers that are way ahead of where the
usual first-in-line folks would be about now.  2012 hikers are well aware
of the wild fires that plagued NorCal last summer.  The Redding fire burned
for over a month, and closed the Trail thru Lassen Pk and Shasta Nat'l
Forest until further notice.  The huge Chips fire also effected the Trail
as did the Bagley fire north of us near Burney Falls St. Pk and the Fort
Complex which terrorized Seaid Valley.  This has been a  v e r y  dry
winter in this area and the danger of more wild fires, either thru
lightning strikes or mad-made is huge. Altho drought conditions continue to
haunt most of NorCal, there has been SOME snow tho.  There was a small
amount that fell before Halloween and brought a halt to Trail work being
done to clear fire debris along the PCT, a few more small flurries, one
huge storm just before Xmas that dropped over four feet on Old Station
(4500' elev), then until the last few days, virtually nothing but unusually
cold weather (my pipes froze).and then yesterday, we got about four inches
here.  Four inches equates at least a foot if not more up on the Trail that
goes thru Lassen Pk. Now I'm delighted to see fresh snow up on my mountain,
and it stays cold here at night (27* last night) melt off is slow.  That
helps the ground water table level recover a bit up there and to a lesser
extent down here.  But it doesn't help the Trail thru the burn areas
created by the Redding fire and probably the Chips as well.  Until there's
enough melt off to let crews back in to clean the Trail it remains closed
until further notice.  We've had high winds thru much of the winter,
healthy trees have been uprooted or snapped off.  Trees weaked by fire and
heavy snow are very apt to have created even more damage that crews must
remove before they will let hikers in.  You early leaders of the pack may
want to monitor trail conditions up in this neck of the woods.  Oh, and
please, be sooo careful up here.  I've had to pack for evacuation twice in
three years, I pray that hiker carelessness won't make me do it again any
time soon.  Thank you, Happy Trails from FireFly....