Archive:Fall Phelix workhike 2010

Once upon a time, access to the Brian Waddington hut was difficult. People would make it in well after dark or not at all. Then the club built a beautiful new trail.

The trail is in pretty good shape, but it won't stay that way without maintenance. This will be a great chance to get out and do some real, useful, but not too threatening work for the club (and one of the last chances before 4m of snow covers everything). October is a great time for these sorts of things - you'll feel good, even though the climbing season is coming to an end and ski season is yet to begin. I mean, what else could you do this time of year? Go to a hotspring?

This trip will be beginner friendly, which means the experienced people will help keep you alive if you've never done something like this before. That said, the tail into the hut is pretty good... so if necessary and you abandon trail work, just concentrating on survival, it would be pretty easy.

Dates

This trip will happen on October 23-24, with a pre-trip meeting the Wednesday before at 6:00pm in the clubroom (and will finish before the 7pm slideshow). If you can't make it, get somebody (anybody, other than me) to represent you. Be sure they know enough information so that we can make arrangements for rides, eating and sleeping.

Specific Tasks

There will be a few main goals, and I'd like to divide the group up to deal with them:

Make the logging road nicer for skiing

Slide Alder, menace of the coastal skier, has been steadily encroaching on the logging road. It's still not thick enough to stop a vehicle (although it will add some racing stripes) - however it really narrows the road. Sometimes, on the flats, this is alright... but on the steep sections it's getting so bad that it's not wide enough to turn, and occasionally bad enough that it can be tough to snowplow. In an effort to keep the "skiing down an icy rut covered logging road, in the dark, without enough room to slow down" nightmare to a minimum this winter we're going to cut back the alder along the steep sections.

Fix the outhouse roof

Last summer we moved the outhouse. This solved the "full" problem, but started a new one we did not anticipate - the roof got ripped off. Theory goes that in it's new location more snow builds up on the roof, causing an enormous asymmetric snow mushroom to form. This eventually got so heavy and asymmetric that it threatened to tip the whole outhouse, but instead ripped the roof off such that it tipped over and the mushroom fell off. We're not really sure... all we know is that the roof was ripped off, but left sitting more-or-less on top of the outhouse at a funny angle, with a ~300kg snow mushroom lying on the ground beside the outhouse.

We've constructed two new rafters for the ends of the roof. We need to take the roof off, remove the 45 degree triangles, and install our new 60 degree triangles. Hopefully this does the trick, because 60 degrees as as steep as we can make it without also carrying in a new roof. This will be harder than it sounds, mostly because everything is made of 3/4" ply and really heavy. The outhouse is also really tall, complicating matters.

Make the clearcut section nicer

The trail goes through a clearcut along a deactivated logging road. It's received some love, but could use some more levelling with heavy tools like shovels and mattocks etc.

Fix up some wet sections on the trail

Some parts of the trail go through topsoil with built in aquifers. This means that the water basically oozes out of the dirt turning the trail into a mud pit. Uphill ditching along with the use of rocks, logs and transported mineral soil will turn these sections into sections which will last. Some work has been done on these already, but there's more to do.

Build benches at the East end of the Lake

When the trail finally punches out into the alpine you cross a bridge and then are spat out on the East side of the lake, on a beautiful sand beach (alpine sand beaches are rare), overlooking the lake with the hut on the far side and majestic mountains overlooking. It's a beautiful spot, and it would be so nice if a few of the washed up beach logs were shaped into a pair of benches such that, after slogging up the trail, you can sit down with a snack and enjoy the view.

General maintenance

The rest of the trail is in beautiful shape, but won't stay that way without a little TLC. Pruning back sections which are re-growing, re-digging water bars, and moving blowdowns.

Carry down trash

We found a disgusting pile of debris hiding in the forest a little east of the east end of the lake. Nobody knows how it got there, but it's a disgrace to the beauty of the area. If we all take down a piece we can get rid of it eventually.

What to bring to survive

Be sure and bring everything you'll need for an overnight hut trip. It will probably be cold and wet, so as usual don't bother bringing anything made out of cotton. The hut will probably be reasonably warm, packed full of people. It won't surprise me if we find snow near the hut, but there won't be enough to require snowshoes or skis.

Bring good boots too, preferably waterproof. I don't want anybody hurting their ankles bushwacking around near the trail. For reference, I'll probably wear my double plastic mountaineering boots since they are beefy, warm, actually waterproof, and make a good tool for trail work all by themselves.

If you have work gloves or tools suitable for trail maintenance (basically, gardening tools or beefy stuff like an old axe you don't particularly love), bring them too.

Interested

Limit is 30, since that's how many the hut fits if we sleep on the floor. There's another trail workhike in the Callaghan Valley the same weekend (no wiki page yet) if you're interested. Make sure you come to the pre-trip meeting, where we sort out "actually coming" from "interested enough to write their name via the internet". Of course, it would be most polite to remove your name if you know you're not coming.

Please indicate in brackets if any of the specific tasks sound exciting, whether or not you'd feel comfortable being "in charge" of a small group, and if you have any tools you'll bring.

1. Veenstra (generally making sure things get done, have all manner of tools)
2. Roland (mostly criticizing other people's work)
3. Sam Mckoy (no tools but I'm a powerhouse labourer)
4. Riley Patterson (mostly to be criticized, minimal tools for path/road clearing)
5. Michael Lee (NO TOOLS, but I can use them)
6. Claire Farnoux (no tools)
7. Alexandra Annejohn (no tools) (signed up when trip was posted 16-17th, waiting for confirmation still coming)
8. Anna Ehret (no tools- I'm sorry) (signed up when trip was posted 16-17th, waiting for confirmation still coming)
9. DJ Lake-I carry heavy things up mountains for pleasure (handtools like saw, hammer, and external frame pack for big awkward objects)
10. Devin Todd (lots of tools) (figures he can go to the gear swap now)
11. Grace (seeing if can get off work) (moved from Brew workhike originally this weekend, possibly not actually interested)
12. Sida Zhou (moved from Brew workhike originally this weekend, possibly not actually interested)
13. Lisa Altan (No Tools)(Don't know work schedule yet, hopefully coming!)
14. Katherine Valentine (no useful tools)
15. Alex Thompson (no tools)
16. Kathrin (no tools, building benches, comfortable being in charge of group)
17. William Scales (no tools)

Limit is 30 since that's how many we can fit in the hut if we sleep on the floor.