The team preparing area snowshoe trails cleared more than 50 blowdown trees in the region of Edison Sno-Park on Monday, Nov.12, and volunteers have made “great progress” so far on all of the trails they maintain.
Temperatures were around 37 degrees at the Sunriver turnoff on the day the workers left Bend for Edison Sno-Park. Volunteers included Dennis DeLapp, Christie Crowe, Dave Alward, John Stockham, Mike Bodel and group leader Bob Timmer.
“We noted just a skiff of snow in a few shade-protected spots,” Bob reports. “Goal for the day was to clear any blowdown [trees] from the long and short snowshoe loops and the linking segment of the Tesla snowshoe trail to the Edison shelter.
“Portions of the Edison trails have well-deserved reputations for beetle-killed blowdown, and they lived up to their reputation. Even with the 12-inch clearing limits of ‘Class 2 trail guidelines,’ we cleared 51 blowdown trees from the 4.5 miles of trail and moved many others. Also, several stretches of the trail were trimmed of encroaching brush.”
Workers also recovered and rehung several trail-marking assurance diamonds, and a trail sign was recovered from bushes and erected again – at least temporarily — at the Light Bulb Ski and Long Loop snowshoe trail crossing.
“Everyone got a good workout with the continual stepping over logs and lava,” Bob reports. “We’ve made great progress on pre-season sweeps of the snowshoe trails this year.”
The list of work done so far includes:
Todd Lake – clear;
Edison short and long loops – clear;
Meissner – clear;
Swampy Porcupine loop to shelter – clear;
Swampy long and short loops, plus Nordeen tie – clear;
Meissner tie to Nordeen – clear;
Edison Tesla — cleared to west end by Forest Service trail crew this summer.
Remaining segments needing work include the far end of the Swampy Porcupine trail and segment over Telemark Butte, plus the Edison Tesla trail from Edison shelter to the west end.
“Now we just need snow, and hopefully without accompanying high winds!” Bob concludes.
