Shovels in the Ground!
December 19, 2019
On Saturday, December 14, an impressive 85 volunteers gathered at the Soquel Demonstration State Forest parking lot to kick off our first Sawpit Dig Day of the season alongside sponsor Santa Cruz Bicycles. After filling up on Bagelry bagels and Alta coffee, our volunteers signed up for a trail crew and circled up for a quick round of introductions and directions from both our trail staff and the CAL FIRE team. Once everyone had a sense of the work to be done, we headed down the fire road to what will become the end of the Sawpit trail reroute and split into our groups for the day.
With packed trail crews spread across almost a mile of the new trail, we were able to make a lot of progress! The energy and excitement of the volunteers kept the momentum going strong throughout the day. While one group focused on splitting full logs into planks for a bridge, another moved a few large downed trees from the narrow, two-foot-wide trail. Others built the base of a bridge over a small swale or benched in new sections of trail up at the top. To keep the new reroute in good shape for the wet seasons ahead, a group of volunteers spent the day learning to identify soft spots in the trail that will need extra support and filling in those areas with large nearby rocks. Armoring is an important construction feature of Sawpit, and allows moisture to escape while maintaining the structural integrity of the trail. Pretty neat! Finally, select volunteers who are enrolled in our Trail Crew Academy were placed into special crews for the day and learned how to hand-build a section of trail from start to finish.
After a full day of digging, everyone gathered back at the SDSF parking lot for snacks, hot cocoa, and Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing beer. Once everyone had a chance to graze a bit, we turned the floor over to the Santa Cruz Bicycles team to say a few words and kick off our event raffle. Santa Cruz Bicycles generously donated jerseys, socks, water bottle cages, and even a branded pickup pad for our Dig Day, and some of our lucky volunteers went home happy with their new swag. Our first-ever Sawpit Dig Day was a huge success, and we hope to see you at the next one!
We are really impressed with the amount of trail we were able to build at this first event, however, we aren’t done yet. We’ve still got a big fundraising gap to fill before we can continue our work, and need to make a bit more progress on the campaign before we can set a date for our next public Dig Day on Sawpit. Can you help us reach our goal? Click the button below to learn more about Sawpit and donate today. Plus, for every $5 you donate you’ll be entered to win your choice of Santa Cruz Bicycle - a win-win for you and our local trails.
With packed trail crews spread across almost a mile of the new trail, we were able to make a lot of progress! The energy and excitement of the volunteers kept the momentum going strong throughout the day. While one group focused on splitting full logs into planks for a bridge, another moved a few large downed trees from the narrow, two-foot-wide trail. Others built the base of a bridge over a small swale or benched in new sections of trail up at the top. To keep the new reroute in good shape for the wet seasons ahead, a group of volunteers spent the day learning to identify soft spots in the trail that will need extra support and filling in those areas with large nearby rocks. Armoring is an important construction feature of Sawpit, and allows moisture to escape while maintaining the structural integrity of the trail. Pretty neat! Finally, select volunteers who are enrolled in our Trail Crew Academy were placed into special crews for the day and learned how to hand-build a section of trail from start to finish.
After a full day of digging, everyone gathered back at the SDSF parking lot for snacks, hot cocoa, and Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing beer. Once everyone had a chance to graze a bit, we turned the floor over to the Santa Cruz Bicycles team to say a few words and kick off our event raffle. Santa Cruz Bicycles generously donated jerseys, socks, water bottle cages, and even a branded pickup pad for our Dig Day, and some of our lucky volunteers went home happy with their new swag. Our first-ever Sawpit Dig Day was a huge success, and we hope to see you at the next one!
We are really impressed with the amount of trail we were able to build at this first event, however, we aren’t done yet. We’ve still got a big fundraising gap to fill before we can continue our work, and need to make a bit more progress on the campaign before we can set a date for our next public Dig Day on Sawpit. Can you help us reach our goal? Click the button below to learn more about Sawpit and donate today. Plus, for every $5 you donate you’ll be entered to win your choice of Santa Cruz Bicycle - a win-win for you and our local trails.
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