[Russell Towle's journal]
“6/29/79 yesterday dave nelson and i went up to rowton & the upper basin of the north fork. we did the standard circuit. i got sunburnt. we saw cloud bows.”
[Russell Towle's journal]
“6/29/82 Wonderful, wonderful rain… It's been a cooler, cloudier summer than usual, and people speculate: volcanic dust? solar flares? And though a fan of causality myself, I see California's climate as inherently variable; the position of the more-or-less permanent high-pressure cell offshore determining if it rains or shines to the lee (on the mainland). We live very near the northern limit of summertime protection by the high-pressure anti-cyclone offshore—my intuition is that very small changes in it have significant effects on our weather. Einstein might have been as frustrated by the seeming indeterminacy of weather and climate as he was by that of the sub-atomic world ~ for both, a statistical approach has the best chance of predicting what will come to pass, so that the more specific the place or the time the less likely it becomes that the weather (or the position of a sub-atomic particle) may be reliably forecast.”
[Russell Towle's journal]
“June 29, 1999
[...]
Yesterday Gay & Greg & Janet & I climbed Castle Peak, which still has snow ten feet deep up on the summit ridge. The kids did well, except that there was the usual complaining on the way up; but the view was wonderful and Janet climbed the last vertical pitch to the summit with me. Lucky was with us and we had a few anxious moments as he desperately tried to find a way up to the summit and got out on some very steep rock with a long drop below him.
The return down the mountain was great, we found some nice long glissades. Janet and I split off and searched for glissades the whole way down, staying in forested areas where the snow pack is still largely intact. Gay & Greg managed to lose their way so Janet & I had to wait for 40 minutes before they finally made it to Castle Creek. A good day. The kids had remarkable energy last night.
Greg and I had climbed Andesite Peak just a week ago. He had lots of fun glissading then, but had a bit too much sun or something yesterday and says he wants no more snow. His eighth birthday is coming up on July 19.
[...]
Dave Lawler and I hiked into Big Granite Creek by way of Salmon Lake, returning by way of Fisher Lake and the Loch Leven lakes.”
[Russell Towle's journal]
Damage to Big Granite Trail
[North Fork Trails blogpost, June 29, 2005:
http://northforktrails.blogspot.com/2005/06/damage-to-big-granite-trail.html ]
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| BEFORE Russell Towle and son Greg |
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| AFTER Catherine O'Riley on post-logging trail |
I made calls and wrote letters and eventually found that in that area two timber harvest plans (THPs) were afoot: a "10% Exemption" harvest by Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), and a full THP by CHY (another lumber company). The CHY plan was still under consideration by the California Dept. of Forestry (CDF), while SPI's 10% Exemption had been approved without public comment or a formal THP.
The lands of the two companies intermix amid Tahoe National Forest (TNF) lands. I could not tell for sure whether the damage had been done by CHY or by SPI or by both.
Yesterday Catherine O'Riley and I took a quick drive up there for a look. I was worried that snow might still block the roads, but as it happened, we had no trouble. From Yuba Gap to Lake Valley Reservoir, Forest Road 19 and then FR 38 led us past Huysink Lake, past the Salmon Lake Trail, and on to the unmarked ad hoc trailhead on the crest of the divide separating Big Valley on the west from Little Granite Creek on the east.
The popular Loch Leven Lakes area is about a mile north. Salmon Lake, less.
Here we found things just as reported by Tom Martin: the road which constituted that uppermost part of the trail had been cut wider by bulldozers, and then, when the harvest was completed, it had been closed by numerous water bars, two feet high. These had been placed at 50- to 100-foot intervals along the road. At the fork, a couple hundred yards in, the right fork—which is the Big Granite Trail—was untouched, but the left fork continued raw and torn up.
I suspect the right fork, which leads to a hunter's camp and the first appearance of a regular foot trail, has been a road for a long time, possibly for nearly if not all of a hundred years; the first roads had penetrated to Huysink Lake before 1900, and there had been plans in the early 1890s to widen the Big Granite Trail into a road, for better access to the La Trinidad Mine, across the North Fork American in Sailor Canyon.
We were in Section 9, T16N, R13E.
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| Goshawk in the Incense Cedar |
Here we were warned away by a pair of Goshawks, guarding a nest in a tall thin Incense Cedar with much mistletoe. Fortunately they did not attack.
The logging road ending in the log deck was also freshly widened and graded. We left it in an attempt to recover the original line of the trail, and had success, following it down through heavy timber into the northernmost margins of the Four Horse Flat meadow-complex.
I had followed this same trail line to this same meadow margin from the other direction, a couple of years ago. It seems to me very worth while to re-open the historic trail and avoid the logging roads.
This area stood untouched by logging until around 1990 or thereabouts. Any who were familiar with this wonderland of meadows and tall aspens and huge cedars can only bitterly regret the 1990s logging. This logging was the consequence of the sudden sale of the old railroad lands in the 1980s.
If We The People had been smart, We would have bought those railroad lands a long time ago. They would have been cheap. But no.
We continued down the Big Granite Trail through Four Horse Flat, passing the Cherry Point Trail, itself, since the ca. 1990 SPI harvest, a logging road, and showing fresh use; and after a time in which we saw no logging damage, new skid trails appeared, and the old BGT disappeared beneath debris.
We were unable to get south into Section 17, near Sugar Pine Point, because fallen trees blocked Road 38 near the Big Granite Trail. I fear that more damage may have been inflicted upon the old Sugar Pine Point Trail, as well. The trail drops to the east side of the divide and descends slowly to Sugar Pine Flat, an amazing stand of giant pines on TNF lands in Section 20. Part of this historic trail escaped destruction in the ca. 1990 SPI logging, and friends of mine and I have worked to maintain the almost-intact section, cutting back the Huckleberry Oak.
Just because nine-tenths of an old trail has been ruined by logging, does not mean that the surviving one-tenth should be abandoned.
I have been advocating TNF acquisition of these privately-held lands for a number of years now. Some sections have been purchased: Section 19, west of Sugar Pine Flat; and sections 11, 15, and 21, running down Big Granite Canyon to the North Fork. The good work of land acquisition should continue with all speed.
The "10% Exemption" harvest scenario allows timberland owners to harvest up to 10% of the standing timber without having to file a full Timber Harvest Plan. As I understand it, no new roads are constructed, but new skid trails are allowed as necessary. There is no public comment.
More to follow, as developments warrant.
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