Dispatch From the Trail: A volunteer’s perspective

By Dac Collins. April 19, 2018. Jacob Keltner woke up earlier than usual last Saturday, around 6 o’clock. With a bagel in one hand and his daypack in the other, he hopped into the 2010 Ford Focus that would take him east down I-84 and into the Gorge. It was really a pretty common routine for many Portlanders going hiking on the weekend, except Keltner wasn’t going for a hike. (Not unless you consider spending most of your day logging out charred, fallen trees with a crosscut saw hiking.)

He got to the Herman Creek Work Center a few minutes before 8 a.m., and it was there that he met up with four other volunteers with the Pacific Crest Association?s Mt. Hood Chapter. After a quick safety briefing, they caravanned to the Gorton Creek Trailhead.

The crew came across their first obstruction of the day about two miles up the trail, and they spent the next four hours bucking the blackened log. More akin to charcoal than firewood, the bark had to be stripped with an axe before workers could take turns running a crosscut saw through the lifeless trunk.

When it finally gave way, the obstruction now cleared, they marched ahead and rounded a corner, only to find another log blocking the path. Looking beyond it, they spotted another. And another. And another.

Four logs cleared in a 100-yard stretch. That?s not bad for a day’s work.

Ethan and Winston Rall watch as David Roe, a PCTA Caretaker and experienced sawyer, runs a crosscut saw through a large diameter Douglas fir with the help of another volunteer. Photo by Terry Hill. 

The Pacific Crest Trail Association’s Mt. Hood Chapter is currently working to restore roughly 29 miles of trails within the Eagle Creek burn area. And like most of the other groups allowed to work in the closed-off wilderness area, the PCTA?s crews are made up almost entirely of volunteers.   

“The volunteer response has just been amazing,” says Roberta Cobb, chair of the Mt. Hood Chapter.

As the designated caretaker of the section of PCT between Bridge of the Gods and Herman Bridge Trail, all of which lies within the Eagle Creek burn area, Cobb has worked alongside trail crews in the burn area more than a dozen times over the past few months. And during the eight or so years since she began watching over this stretch in an official capacity, she says she has never seen such a powerful response from volunteers.

The Mt. Hood Chapter’s first trail crew hiked into the burn area on January 17. In the time since, crews have continued restoration projects on trails leading out of the Herman Creek Trailhead, including the roughly eight-mile stretch of the PCT from Cascade Locks south to Teakettle Springs. Any further than Teakettle Springs, Cobb says, and you’re above the snow line, where merely assessing the condition of the trail is next to impossible. It will be weeks, perhaps a month or more, until crews can begin working on the section of trail from Teakettle Springs to Wahtum Lake, the southernmost boundary of the closed portion of the PCT.     

Spring snows have not hampered their ability to work at lower elevations, however, and volunteers have made significant headway doing tread work, brushing and removing rocks along the PCT and other connecting trails. While there is still no guarantee that this short but steep 14-mile section of the 2,650-mile-long trail will open to the public this summer, crews remain optimistic.

Blooming trillium gives hope to volunteers working in the burn area, and reminds us that the forest has already begun to renew itself. Photo by Terry Hill.   

“When I bring people out, we stop for lunch hour and we ask people who haven’t been in the burn area what their feelings are. And mostly their response is: ‘Well it’s dark, but it’s not as bad as I imagined.'”

Of course having the right attitude is essential when doing grueling, manual labor in a hazardous wilderness area. And although Cobb does not want to deter anyone from helping, she wants people signing up with the Mt. Hood Chapter of the PCTA to know exactly what they’re getting themselves into.

“I think it’s really important for people to know that these days are really long. These are long, hard days of work that we’re putting in right now because we’re having to hike so far in to get to the work. We’re leaving at 8 in the morning and getting back to the car at 5:30 p.m. or later. And it’s steep hills, ’cause it’s the Gorge.

“And good, sturdy boots are absolutely required,? she continues. ?We?ve already had to send people home because they show up in trail runners.?

Cobb says that aside from these warnings, the most important thing to share with potential volunteers is that ?the work is just so rewarding.”

PCTA Regional Representative Dana Hendricks echoes that sentiment. Hendricks, whose territory covers about 300 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, continues to be inspired by the positivity of volunteers.

“They are just unstoppable,” she says. “I have never seen people so excited…they are just really honored to be part of this recovery effort.”

One of Hendricks’ primary responsibilities is to work with experienced crew leaders—all of them volunteers—to prepare them for the hazards of working in a post-fire landscape. And although she spends much of her time teaching at training events, Hendricks has already joined work crews in the burn area twice this spring.

PCTA Regional Representative Dana Hendricks and crew leader Frank Jahn take a well-earned break after clearing two sizable logs from the Gorton Creek Trail last Saturday, April 14. Photo by Terry Hill.

“We’re interested in any of the side trails that are part of the network that connect to the PCT,” Hendricks explains. “There’s about 14 miles of the PCT in the burn area, and another 15 or so of connected trails that we?re working on.”

As for the hazards associated with these trails, she says that rockslides are the most worrisome—and the most time consuming.

“In some areas there are just a few rocks that need to be thrown or kicked off [the trail], and in other areas there is a five-foot deep slide of dirt and rock that has buried the trail. You could put four or five people on a slide like that and they could spend all day just trying to get back down to where the trail used to be.”

Hendricks also mentions the burnt-out holes along the trails that lie hidden underneath the debris, and the charred trees and logs that have fallen across the trail.

Angie Panter de-barks a Douglas fir while David Roe and Rob Heyman get the saw ready. Photo by Terry Hill.

“The charcoal on the burnt bark really dulls the saws,” she explains. “So we have to spend some extra time de-barking the logs before we can cut through them; you have to de-bark really carefully before you put your crosscut to that wood.”

Now that crew leaders have undergone the necessary training and have experience on particular trails, Hendricks says the organization is looking to add more inexperienced volunteers to their work crews. 

Those looking to volunteer with the local PCTA chapter should either check their event calendar or sign up for their email notification list. Hendricks recommends visiting the Gorge Stewardship and Trails Resilience Facebook page to find additional information regarding work crews and the status of trails in the Eagle Creek burn area.  

Potential volunteers should also recognize that there are other groups working in the burn area as part of the Gorge Trails Recovery Team. Groups like Trailkeepers of Oregon, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and Washington Trails Association will also be organizing work crews in the coming months, and they are all looking for volunteers to step up and help with this effort.