[pct-l] PCT Trail Maintenance

[goforth at cio.net (Joanne Lennox)]

the following message was sent to Timothy Stone who is the PCTA Liason to
the Federal Agencies that govern much of the land that the PCT runs
through(FS, Park Service. BLM).

Timothy Stone,

I would like to convey some observations that I have made regarding PCT
trail maintenance.
1.)Some of the PCT appears to be in worse conditon than it was 4 years ago:

I Hiked the entire PCT in 1999 , and then this year I finished the trail a
second time with a horse.  In many areas, especially in California and
certainly in Fishdom (Pete Fish's bailywick of the first 700 miles of the
PCT), the trail continues to be well maintained and much as I remembered it
in 1999.  In Washington ,in particular, however and in some parts of
Oregon, the trail was not nearly as well maintained as it had been in 99.

In Washington, It appears that there is definitely more use, but it also
seems there is less maintenence. In particular, there is an absence of
brushcutting, tread work , and water bars.

2.) I noticed however that while there maybe relatively little of the foot
by foot trail maintenance(tread, brush, and bars), there was actually an
increase in trail projects -Bridges, puncheon, steps, rock walls.  And I
wondered that money for large projects maybe available while the actually
condition of a majority of the trail continues to suffer. In California,
two years ago in Yosemite and the high Sierras, I saw whole youth corp
programs diligently building rock works, and doing no trail maintenence.

3.) That there is a drive for Trail maintenence crews to build rock works,
especially stairs and elaborate water bars, and not do trail maintenence. 
And that these trail policies have now migrated father and father north and
can be seen and are being built in Oregon.  I feel that while stairs may be
a necessary evil in some areas, they indicate that a trail is poorly
designed (and/or poorly maintained).  I strongly feel that they are
intrusive in a natural landscape, break walking rhythmn, are frequently
designed for taller inividuals, and that they may cause increased
skeletalmuscular problems over longer distances.  For myself, they cause
real knee problems, and I noted that this was true of a number of other
hikers on the John Muir trail.

On the other hand, there was a Youth conservation Corp that was working
from North of Seiad valley to Near Scott Summit this summer in the Klamath
Natinal Forest and I was truely inspired and grateful for the quality and
quanity of their work. Miles of tread work had been well and carefully
done. They had put in some steps around some rocky buttresses in the
Fischer Lake area but they were a few at a time and dispersed over that
area of the trail. 

3.) That most of the trail is well Maintained as far as log removal is
concerned, except for Crater Lake.  The 8 miles from Red Cone Spring to
Lightening Creek is not maintained at all.  this is unfortunate as the
entire distance is a very old road that has a good base and gradient, and
it is a beautiful scenic area.  It had not a single water bar, has a lot of
water damage, and had 143 trees down over the trail.  I had been trying to
get good information on this section for 3 months since a post in June from
a hiker said that the section had a lot of blowdown that was almost
impassable to hikers and would be to equestrians.  The telephone infomation
system at Crater Lake is a circuit of menus that simply dumps the enquirer
off at the original menu.  When I tried all the other options on the menu,
after 3 tries I was able to get another number when I waited for 15 minutes
and got the lodging staff.  I reached a Trail Maintainence person and they
said that section was clear.  Two other equestrian Parties received the
same information.  Even after going through that section and calling 
maintainence personel regarding all the blowdown, they were still saying
that it was clear.  She said that "all large obstcles had been removed"; In
October, after a couple of more calls, the person in charge of
maintainence, admitted that it had not been cleared.  I did not mind that
the trail maintainance had not been done, but that i had been repeated lied
to so that when I reached this area, I was not really prepared with a
larger saw and more time(The Park service Puts out the leave -no-trace
programs, the first tenet of which is" be prepared and plan ahead").  If a
real "show stopper" log is over a trail and I have to backtrack, then
what?.  There were no other trails that could take me around that area. 
Was the Park Service going to pick me up in a horse trailer and trailer me
around?  Very few options are available to equestrians. Hay and feed, and
horse hitchhiking or lodging is not available at trailheads, resorts and
most nearby towns, let alone Mazama village and Campground. The rim trail
is not the PCT; it is an alternate not available to equestrians.I ruled out
 the roads for my horse right away -miles from the road crossings I could
hear the motorcycles.  Crater Lake is Hog Heaven.

4.)That a couple of PCTsegments are designated impassable or off limits to
horses. The PCT is an equestrian and foot trail and the standards reflect
this requirement. To designate a PCT segment as nonequestrian seems to mean
that the forest service does not have to build the trail to appropriate
standards or to maintain it to that standard.   I have covered the
discrepancies at Crater Lake in the above paragraph.  There was another
segment between Cathedral Pass and Deception Pass where equestrians are
told to bypass the PCT and descend a couple of thousand feet to Hyaas Lake
and climb all the way back up to Cathdral Pass (in addition to the
elevation loss and gain, it is 5 mile longer)- specifically it says there
is a ford that is impassable to horses halfway through the 4 mile segment. 
What I found was that the "impassable ford"was not difficult at all, rocky
but not ankle keep, but much of the trail had poor tread, was badly eroded
in sections and really not built to accomodate either heavy foot traffic or
horses, let alone the amount of precipitation, runoff, and snow in the
cascades. And the impassable Ford (which may be impassable in high spring
runoff, due to a narrow gorge immediately above the trail): if it was
impassable to horses, would be even more impassable to hikers.  Yet there
were no signs so indicating, and indeed if run off is high, that area would
be just one of many problem creek crossings. There are areas that some
equestrians on the PCT, should not use (the goat Rocks traverse, the Vista
Ridge, Milk Creek, Firecreek Pass, Red Pass, Chickamin Pass areas are all
dangerous areas, that are very rocky and exposed and with minimal or no
trail in places).  None of these is signed. If a trail is made to
accomodate horses, it should last and require less trail maintainence -
better too for hikers in the long run.

5.).While logs are being sawn to remove them as obstacles, often there is
only a narrow gap of about 3 feet.  I noticed this happening especially in
Oregon and in National Parks, but throughout the trail at sporatic
intervals.  This is not enough to accomodate pack horses; but worse yet on
any kind of slope, in succeeding years the uphill log will settle and slide
and intrude on the trail. So the work must be repeated.  This mystifies me
since it rarely costs more effort to cut a five foot hole as it does a
three foot.  

Joanne Lennox