[pct-l] Why California's Trails Are Disappearing From Our Maps

[Ken Murray]

"I haven't hiked that section yet, but possibly the reason why you had nodifficulty following the trail there last October was because Ken and his crew already put in the enormous numbers of hours required to reconstruct it. So unless I'm misreading something, I think your report of a well-maintained trail is due precisely to Ken's work to make it that way, and he's telling us what it was like before they fixed it. Right? Eric"Eric, you got it exactly.I co-led a crew of 7 regulars, and 25 high school volunteers for a week (we had to set up two separate camps due to the numbers), with a couple of other smaller trips by a few people.This was the third year in a row, spending 7 days working on this section, spending what I'd estimate was 3,360 man-hours working on this section.My first trip into Clover Meadow, between the two bridges, revealed trail that had choked to about 6-12 inches wide. I think only the hunting trips with stock by the section A chief for the Trail Gorillas, George Boone, has kept the trail open.That first year, I opened the brush to about 18 inches, and did tread repair, and cut trees.The next year, opened it to about 3 feet, and last year, to 4-6 feet.That's where it is now. I'd like a crew for another week to open it to the regulation 8 feet wide (brush not the trail, which is about 18 in)That's in addition to eliminating all the side trails in the aptly named Cow Canyon.Glad to hear that hikers last year found no difficulties. It wasn't easy to make it that way.Here are some pictures from one of the brushing trips from 2012 that shows before and after:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=499743140093396&set=a.499743120093398.1073741845.221960474538332&type=1&theater