Nice to meet you Legoskier and Telenater.

DTDR: I had little idea what the 5/15/04 Downieville Trail Daze would encompass. This was my first trail building day. Living in the Bay Area with out-the-door rides around, getting in the car to go ride is an odd idea to me. I get in the car to find snow. So although Downieville is a destination I am just getting a clue on what the big deal is. Since Trail Daze was on, and I had yet to ski Sierra Buttes again this year and I read that the Trail Conservancy would like to establish a year round hut/yurt system my interest in the area was up so I figured I'd go and make it a combo trip.
The primary goal of the 15th was to dry out about 65 feet of Graegle Creek Trail about 25miles up the road from Downieville and near the Gray Eagle Lodge.

The trail section is about a half mile north of "Gray Eagle Lodge":
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=...83&layer=DRG25

The secondary goal for the day of clearing growth from another trail would be attacked if enough folks showed up, which they did and I overheard were successful in doing go.

Up at Graegle the two Forest Service folks were waiting for us, along with tools, core logs, rebar, fiber cloth, culvert pipes, a couple of wheelbarrows, one tank tread motorized wheelbarrow, drawings of the "Forest Service approved" turnpike, introductions, an orientation with safety instructions, cool spring air, a nice breeze and lot of sun.

I did not know what a turnpike was until I saw the drawing:

http://www.fs.fed.us/.ftproot/pub/ac...ails/913_2.pdf

Then I knew what kind of day we were going to have, or I thought I did. Turns out although a bunch of our group had previously worked Trail Daze, some in other areas, Telenater was the only one of us with turnpike building experience and knew.

Milling around the trail head waiting for another van of trail builders, I got on with that odd, to some, idea of introducing yourself to people from the internet. I guessed correctly and met Telenater and then Legoskier. About two dozen folks showed up, roughly 1/3 Sierra locals, 1/3 Sacramento folks, and 1/3 bay area folks.

Soon we were at the boggy section of trail and folks were jumping into turnpike construction. Orange tape pre-placed by the Forest Service indicated where to build. Judy, our Forest Service leader gave a few initial instructions where to lay the culvert, where to dig to re-route the water flow and soon it was largely a free for all of destruction and construction with people, largely spontaneously, quickly and smoothly setting to work digging, laying the logs and collecting rock and gravel. Judy recruited Telenater and other volunteers to figure out the nitty gritty of actually laying the turnpike, working smoothly as a sub-team to figure out exactly where to dig for drainage, lay the logs and place the stones and gravel.
Before long I had an idea what was going to happen, folks were busy and I was feeling idle and I knew what I was going to do: collect fine Sierra rock and gravel! Legoskier and a few others worked for what seemed like a couple of hours tossing rock from a rock rich area to near the trail where others loaded and wheeled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow load to the turnpike. Each square foot of turnpike easily required 100-200 pounds of rock and gravel. After all the easy pickings were collected Legoskier went to work with the sledgehammer and liquefied big rocks. Each hammer blast sent a spray of chips and added to the steam-like dust cloud. Later in the day I saw that Legoskier joined the muddy, cooler and shaddier super busy turnpike construction area. Rock and gravel was collected as far as a quarter mile back to the parking lot. The advancing 3-foot wide turnpike replaced beautiful black mud of uncertain depth. No gold nuggets were found but particularly stubborn drainage trench obstacles, once finally removed, were offered as prizes. I was impressed by the energetic and tireless efforts of the Trail Daze crew. As expected this turnpike project was not completed Saturday. It was all good fun. Anybody interested in working on the remaining unfinished turnpike or any other upcoming Trail Daze contact Yuba Expeditions or Sierratrails.org.

Sunday I skied Sierra Buttes, the easy way, from Packer Lake.