The Laguna Canyon Foundation staff have been busy all summer getting ready for the upcoming trail maintenance season! We have tallied up end-of-season volunteer survey results, been out in the Parks surveying trails and prioritizing projects, hosted a public Trails Forum, purchased new tools and supplies and met with Park staff to discuss our plans.
In addition to all of the regular maintenance and trail improvements we want to accomplish this season, the forecast is calling for heavier-than-average precipitation, so there will likely be plenty of storm damage to contend with as well. We will have a lot of work to do!
Here is what the schedule of Trail Stewardship Events will look like this season:
- Regularly-scheduled Trail Stewardship Volunteer Events will begin in October. They will continue to be on 2nd Sundays at Laguna Coast Wilderness and 4th Saturdays at Aliso & Woods Canyon (with some exceptions to avoid holiday weekends or reschedule rained-out events). The first days at each park (October 11th and the 24th) will include a short introduction to the program, a quick review of proper tool use and maintenance and basic trail design principles, and then we will get out on the trail and do some work.
- We will also be meeting to do trail work in the park more regularly during the week this season. We will start meeting each Thursday, beginning on September 17th. This group will be doing prep work to get the trails ready for the first big storm, such as bagging and caching dirt, staging building materials and putting in critical drainage features to prevent further damage to our trails. Once the rains hit, this group will morph into our “Rapid Response Team” to address any major storm damage that might occur. This group will also help to prepare for upcoming volunteer events so that we can get the most out of them.
- We will also be putting more energy into outreach for these events this season, including posting them along with the other Park activities on the LCF and OCParks websites, regular updates on our Facebook Page, flyers and more. Please help us by spreading the word far and wide!
By the way, here are some of the accomplishments from last season:
- Volunteer Events: 25
- Hours of Volunteer Work: 500+
- Unique Volunteers engaged: 44
- Brushing, ft: 3,500
- Materials transported/cached, lbs: 3,550
- Grade dips: 17
- Berm Turns: 5
- Retaining Wall, ft: 4
- Tread Smoothing/Repair, ft: 430
- Misc. structures: 2
- New Authorized Trails: 1!
Thanks to all of the volunteers and partners who helped to make last season such a success, despite the weather-related challenges! We hope to build on those successes to make this coming season even bigger and better!
If you are interested in giving back to the Parks, learning more about your Parks and your trail system, and being a part of a hard-working team, please contact us at alan@lagunacanyon.org to learn more about joining the LCF Trail Stewardship Program.
We look forward to hearing from you!