Trail Talk – April 2026

SUCH AN INTERESTING winter season. In general, temperatures stayed above average, though a few frigid nights were experienced. Rainfall was sorely missed after such a promising start, and little snow materialized. After the past couple of years with heavy, lingering snow making travel at higher elevations a bit more challenging, it was nice to have accessible trails throughout our woodlands, but we fear we may reap a harvest of powder dry woods later this summer. (We do hold out hope for a cooler, wetter spring season.)

One delightful aspect when we’re walkabout is to gather information from our surroundings. We allow our minds to wander as indeed our footsteps wander, gathering clues and noticing patterns. For those folks out and about over the last year, there’s been much to notice in areas of fuels reduction in our local woodlands.

An observation that caused us to dig into the botany manuals was a notice of exactly where our thickets of manzanita, previously too dense to pass through, now cut to the ground, gathered into piles and burnt, would regerminate. Surprisingly, and contrary to some widely held opinions, even though the soils were covered in a carpet of manzanita seeds, germination only occurred where burn piles had been, and along margins of trails and gullies, where erosive rains had carried fire charred debris into areas of repose. This observation led us to research manzanita regeneration after fires, and we learned that, indeed, fire scarification is necessary for the next generation of plants. In other words, unless there was widespread ground fire, those open hillsides should not suddenly become a carpet of young plants.

We’re now excited to watch the evolution of our hillsides, where once dense stands of mature manzanita should be replaced by “alien crop circles” of young manzanita plants. With the release of other woody plants such as oaks, madrones, and pines, the emerging mosaic of these previous monoculture thickets will be interesting for us to keep a curious eye on.

Our volunteers have been busy preparing the trail systems for another season of hiking and biking. An Eagle Scout candidate, Diego McCartney, for his capstone project, has reconstructed the two failing plank bridges on Shade Creek Trail in Forest Park. These new hiking bridges provide safer stream crossings during inclement weather.

Another noticeable endeavor has been additional erosion prevention work on some of the older sections of the Forest Park Trails that were originally routed along previous logging roads. Where steep sections showed heavy erosion and dangerous tread conditions, lazy “S” turns were constructed to prevent further erosion. The volunteer crews ask that trail users respect these efforts at improving safety, and refrain from the urge to defeat the purpose of this work.

Other volunteer efforts have led to updated maps for both Forest Park and the Woodlands. Please consider the free Avenza app upload of the maps; this helps maintain a supply of paper maps for first time park users. And, in Forest Park, another season of The Bench Challenge is soon upon us. Check the kiosks and, as always, Happy Trails.