William and I rode Pokerville and Over Lode on Sunday. We saw 4 more trees down.
I will do my best to get these cleaned up soon. However, the tree situation is unusual this year, possibly due to the drought.
My guess is I'm over 50 trees cut so far this year! 15 or so early in the spring which is about average, then another 10+ through May-June, another 26 after the big storm a couple of weeks ago, and several more after the last thunderstorm.
I'm going to wait until after this week's storms until I take the chain saw out again, and I will probably not try to get all of them at once. What's taking up so much of my time, besides the sheer number of trees is that they are always scattered around the park. Hiking to the farthest reaches of the trail in Holy Schist and Over Lode takes a considerable amount of time. Even worse, due to a change in policy at Blue Mound, I no longer have the door combination for the garage, and access to the Gators is dependent upon catching a park employee with access. Then I can only drive my car out to the pool lot or Mounds Road for access, and it's a hike the rest of the way.
Bottom line is I'm going to start letting some of the chain saw work slide so I can get some work done on the trail signage project. Apologies to the trail users this will inconvenience, but I can't afford to slack off on the priorities that the park manager has set for me.
Walt
