This last weekend, a wonderful group of people from the Bay Area and beyond came together to realign a trail on Mt. Sutro.  Some had decades of trail building experience, full beards, and chainsaws.  Others picked up their first trail building tool that afternoon, and most of us were somewhere in the middle.

The first half of the day was a well attended classroom session on the UCSF campus and a feast of Noah’s Bagels and coffee.  WIthin a lovely classroom with an entire windowed wall looking north over Golden Gate Park, the Bridge and Headlands, the IMBA trail care crew of Jason Van Horn and Inga Beck led a detailed breakdown of what makes a proper, sustainable, and simply beautiful multi-use trail.

After a few hours of learning about switchbacks, chokes, dips, mclouds, clinometers (and it’s cousin the beerclino) the entire room emptied towards the parking lot on Sutro, smiling and conversing all along the way. The crew paused en route to the trailwork for a parking lot lunch provided by our hosts, UCSF.

Upon arriving to the hilside, many people, like myself, probably thought that the group had just bitten off more than they could chew.  There was no trail.  There was no path.  It was hard to see the forest for all the trees.  All we had to go on were flag markers, that snaked off like flourescent orange bread crumbs through the brush and trees indicating where we were to pull a trail into existence.

Soon everyone was surrounded by the sounds of work. Shovels shoveling, axes axing, Mclouds dragging, stones moving and dirt compacting.  Everyone in the group was communicating, talking, directing, working and sweating.   Those who knew more educated those who knew less, and it was a beautiful site to see so many erstwhile strangers working together for the simple cause of creating a beautiful path through the woods that everyone will be able to enjoy.

As dirt was moved, foliage was cared for, rocks placed,and  stumps removed, a beautiful, rich and sinuous trail began to emerge.   Working on a trail and bringing it into fruition requires a great deal of physical strength, but the value truly came from the experienced trail builders out on this day, who were able to see areas of the trail that needed more work, needed less work, and could show the newcomers how to see a trail’s condition along the way.

By the time we were packing up tools, collecting the flourescent flags and dusty tools, the entire group was talking about the same thing.  The creation that we accomplished together.  It didn’t matter that they were working hard labor for the last 4 hours; many volunteers couldn’t help themselves from running up and down the newly created trail, marveling at what had been acomplished.  More than a couple people were dreaming of finishing the trail soon and bringing their bicycles out to float amongst the turns and dips of the trail.

In total our participants volunteered  over 216 hours of man power to the project, and realigned roughly 500 feet of trail to avoid sensitive habitat and mitigate steep elevation loss of the existing trail.

Not content to call it a day just yet,  more nourishment awaited the hard working souls in attendance. The liquid refreshments were provided by the Beach Chalet, and were accompanied by SFUR’s  spread of vegetables, chips, pizza and cookies. The well-worked crew continued socializing , and a lovely end was had to a lovely day.

As SF Urban Riders move forward, we look to offer more and more of these days, not only for the rich enjoyment that comes to the volunteers for having left such a beautiful mark on their park and their city, but what will come to all residents of San Francisco as we promote and develop trails and parks throughout our fair city.

Stay tuned for more trail-building bliss, such as these events:

Mount Sutro – First Saturday of Month  9am-1pm  Meet at Woods parking Lot off Medical Center Way

McLaren Park –  August 8th-9th in conjunction with V-O-CAL  http://www.v-o-cal.org/projects/2009.html