[Bigfoot Jim]

PACIFIC CREST TRAILS ASSOCIATION 2012 SCHEDULE FOR THE PCT NORTH OF WHITE PASS NORTH 350 BLADES July 20 – 22 Yakima Pass turnpike Car camp with meals provided Aug 11 North of Stevens Pass, Outdoor Research employees Aug 24 – 26 Tacoma Pass power brushing, Car camp with meals provided Sept 7 – 9 Dewey Lakes bridge rebuild, Backcountry camp Sept 15 Day trip, tread work south of Snoqualmie Ski area Sept 29 Day trip, tread work south of Snoqualmie Ski area Oct 13 Day trip, tread work south of Snoqualmie Ski area Additionally, there will likely be last minute trips in July to take care of specific winter damage. Starting in mid August we will be doing two to three midweek projects per week until the snow flies. We envision brushing north of Tacoma Pass where we left off in 2010 and continuing with tread and drainage work in the Lodge Lake area. We believe some of these will be car camps. We’ll see. Notifications and Sign ups will be via email at North350Blades@gmail.com and FB: North 350 Blades WASHINGTON TRAILS ASSOCIATION (These are PCT trips that were open as of April 6) June 4-8 Suiattle River BCRT June 25- 30 Agnes Creek Logout BCRT July 28 – Aug 4 Pear Lake Volunteer Vacation Aug 14 – 19 Suiattle River BCRT Aug 19 – 23 Log out north of White Pass BCRT Aug 25 – Sep 1 Meander Meadows Volunteer Vacation Sept 1 – 8 Deep Lake Volunteer Vacation Sept 8 – 15 Deep Lake Volunteer Vacation Sign up for WTA trips at WTA.org

[Hulksmash]

I am so bummed i cannot figure out how to free up some time for that trip up the Suiattle in June.

[treeswarper]

I am taking saw classes this weekend at the Trail Skills College at Cascade Locks.

[Token Civilian]

HS - Try for the August dates. As I understand it, for the two WTA Suiattle River trips the FS will open the gates for the crew and they'll be able to drive in as far as physically possible. The first crew will work the Suiattle River trail proper up to (and beyond if time allows) the new PCT junction. This will allow a later USFS crew to use a pack string to bring in supplies to support them for a few weeks. The August WTA crew will work in conjunction with the USFS crew on the new section of the PCT. Tree - which classes? Chain saw practicum or a cross cut class or ????? I'm back there on the 5th for the x-cut re-cert. This coming weekend it's leadership, trail construction and trail reconstruction Fri, Sat and Sun for me.

[Kim Brown]

Bigfoot & I did x-cut re-cert last week; me in anticipation of both the Suiattle Trips.

[treeswarper]

[Bigfoot Jim]

[Token Civilian]

Tree - Sounds like you have a sweet set of classes. The first aid / CPR instructors are a couple of our volunteers. You need not fear the x-cut. One nice thing about them is you can feel and hear the tree talking to you as you cut into it, far more than with a chain saw. There's typically plenty of time to bang in wedges and / or change the game plan, pull the saw and come at it from a different direction. As far as dinging it up or sticking....meh, it happens. But you DO pay closer attention to it since you typically can't just power out of it like with a chain saw. You spend a bit more time prepping the log - peel the bark, dig out under it, laying a piece of bark under the log, reading the bind, etc. And when finishing / doing the release, use the tip of the blade instead of the "production" teeth in the middle of the saw so that if you do drop it in the dirt, you haven't ruined it. I've had to help chop out a stuck saw on my crew (the other sawer was in charge on that log ).....happens to the best (the tree relaxed and pinched it when we paused to, of all things, bang in a wedge. The outer edges of the tree were too soft for the wedge to really open it back up.). As far as sharpening goes, the saw I got last year is still quite sharp. I MIGHT send it in after this season to be filed. It'll be the off season at that point, so I won't miss it for the bit of time it's gone.

[Magellan]

Canyon Creek is about 8 miles from where you can drive to as an admin.

[treeswarper]

I was just printing stuff and discovered I am up for chainsaw recert on May 4. Now, off to clean the dessicated unknown thing out of the Igloo cooler. I'll have to put new stickers on my Barbie Saw. The old ones are fading.

[Kim Brown]

[Token Civilian]

My B cert is an annual. Your cert card should have the dates on it.

[Hulksmash]

[Token Civilian]

[treeswarper]

I am washing goose poop off stuff. That Trails Skill College was excellent. I wore my tin hat for the chainsaw day and nobody chastised me. I sure learned a lot and our big log of the day took a lot of saw work. Gravity kicked in and turned it into a double bind after the first couple of cuts. Just call me "Pinch". The day before we used hand tools and crosscuts on a real trail. I see now what you urban hikers have to deal with. There were tons of folks out on that trail and even dog poop in a bag placed on a log. I think the dog people picked it up on the way back down. Oh, the campground area was near the river, hence the geese.