Saturday June 26, Friday July 9 and Saturday July 31

Backcountry Trail maintenance at Olympic National Forest - Church Creek Trail -- Forest Service Trail #871. This is a beautiful trail that connects the Skokomish watershed with the Wynoochee watershed, so it involves climbing to the drainage divide (1400 ft elev gain). The trail provides an interesting diversity of terrain including an old growth forest with huge trees and unique flora, surprise overlooks into interesting gorges, waterfalls and lakes. The US Forest Service has asked the Olympia Mountaineers to help them reopen the trail after several years of closure. The trail is steadily improving and enjoying more hikers each year and is in reasonably good shape. Work will include trail clearing, removing fallen trees, brushing and some tread repair to areas damaged by erosion. Backcountry trail maintenance requires your 10 essentials, water, lunch, work boots (hiking boots are great), long pants, long sleeve shirt and work gloves (leather or other durable material). Meet at Mud Bay Park & Ride off State Route 101 at 7:45 a.m. Carpool to Church Creek. The Mountaineers will supply hard hats and several hand tools for brushing and tread repair. To help, you can bring a sturdy tool for working in and on the trail surface. Return around 5:30 p.m.

Contact Jim French