Two years ago, Brian Simon and his wife Teresa, undertook to fulfill a vision of theirs and talked the Board of Directors into approving a new version of an old path up Woodhams Creek to the Reservoir Road above Granny Flats. A few volunteers have joined in over time, culminating in his largest crew yet last weekend. They opened the trail on an old overgrown road at the top of the new trail. The trail work is not yet done. The path is still frail and incomplete, though flagged out where it is yet unfinished. One bridge of three is yet to be installed. Brush still needs to be removed in places, some hairpins still need retaining, and parts of the trail need to be hoed and raked, but the end of the huge task is in sight, and the town will have a loop trail from the creek in town to the top of Cuesta Real.
Where Esmeralda and Roquena adjoin, Woodhams Creek slips into town. Though we share its source water from Tunnel Spring, the creek still collects enough from its various sources to flow year round down through its rough green canyon to the Redwoods at La Honda Creek.
Next to the road’s bridge is a slight foot path up the creekside, crossing a dirt bike barrier of pole logs. Now, in February after some steady rains then a beautiful week of sun the narrow trail is wet and muddy as it enters the canyon of Bay trees and ferns below a tall canopy of Douglas Fir, slicing through cuts of fallen trunks. The trail firms as you climb over root mounds working up stream. A short slip of earth at a seep spring has slumped and slid toward the creek in these rains, and jogs the path as it is crossed, a miniature of Scenic Drive crossing the slide.
The buckeyes are beginning to leaf, and soon their bright green young growth should lighten the grove. An abandoned steel pipeline traces near and in the path, as the trail skims along a little above the tumble of the creek, across which lush ferns climb the steep wall above the stream and long gray trunks stretch up to a high evergreen canopy.
A slender aluminum scaffold bridges the creek at its Y, sized for one adult hiker at a time. My older dog prances across but the young won’t trust the bridge and dives down the creek side and up to the trail’s switchbacks climbing the steep rise beyond. Carefully cut to avoid erosion and allow a gradual ascent, the snaking trail is buttressed by beams carried in to terrace the sharp turns and hold the path in place. Climbing above the creek, the path is drier and firm.
The trail winds up the ridge, the woods dotted with explosions of mushrooms, hound’s tongue leafed out and in bloom, and along the sides the inevitable flesh colored naked shoots of poison oak awaiting spring. As we climb, the firs thin out and madrones appear, Trilliums flash scarlet here and there. Large and elegant oaks adorn the ridge, and wonderfully complex buckeyes with their glowing mossy trunks. Woodrats’ huts drape the base of trees, woven into the lower branches. Spanish moss beards the higher branches.
The path snakes back down through tall ferns to the creek again, but here it is narrow and among the anchoring lines of bays the soft bank crumbles too easily. A bridge is yet to be installed here, but the Guild has agreed to back Brian’s group and supply another aluminum plank to make the long span and keep us from ruining the delicate riparian terrain. For now we must clamber up and down, careful to avoid flattening ferns and cascading the rich soil into the stream.
Crossing the stream another steep bank rises amid columns of ivy stretched and winding up the towering trunks of giant firs. The path weaves again through sparse underbrush in the soft green light below the arching canopy.
The trail has a junction at a delicate tributary stream, one path heading straight up the hill, the other crossing just above small falls and leading into a glowing grove of buckeyes, gnarled branches knitting the air, moss and new growth seeming to emit their own light, the air sweet with the freshness, the quiet only altered by the small arguments of hidden birds. This grove itself is worth the workout of the hike, its Medusa-like trees writhing toward the sun. The path passes gracefully through this special place, taking its time so we have a chance to absorb the gentle vitality of the trees, and then leads us back across the stream, joining the other trail, again to climb toward the Reservoir Road.
This last workday was a success. By my count ten volunteers showed up to clear the old road and hoe a path up the last grassy rise to Granny Flats. Brian supervises the path as if it were his child, which it essentially is. Chain saw and pruners and hoes and rakes are all applied judiciously, the first rule is to do no harm. The path can run no more than 20’ before it must reverse grade or change direction to keep rain from making it a seasonal stream. Delicate root systems of large oaks are widely skirted to protect the feeder roots from compaction and to preserve the attendant mycelium of Chantrelles. The trail moves to avoid as many young trees as possible, interesting plants are circumvented, grades are kept to a recommended minimum, switchbacks are reinforced, water diversions are trenched where necessary.
Grant Kern who is experienced at the building of Open Space trails has consulted with Brian on terrain saving techniques. However, Brian’s own concern for protecting the land which he is opening the trail through has been the area’s best defender. He cares and it shows. This has been more than a labor of love, it has been a labor of love and understanding.
If anyone is interested in helping out on a trail workday, you can contact me through the Voice, or contact Brian through LaHonda@yahoogroups.com
I'd like to thank some of the volunteers who have pitched in to make this trail. Brian and Teresa of course, but also Dennis Shaw, Scott & Laura Hayes, Dave, Susie & Russ, Shannon Gotschaol, Tom Copely, and others I don't know.
A caution: this path is built by and for hikers. It does not have the wide path or well compacted base that could support horses. Nor are the bridges even close to being able to support a horse. Also much of the path does not have head clearance adequate for horseriders. A section of the upper path was badly damaged when a
horse was ridden down it while still soaked from the rains last month. Please don't attempt to use it as a horse trail.
Tom Dodd
more photos @ http://lahonda.typepad.com/photos/woodhams_creek_trail/index.html
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