25. June 2018 · Comments Off on Yellow Jacket Trail Head Project · Categories: Around The Campfire, Work Parties and Projects

Yellow Jacket trail head is south east of Cascade, Idaho. You get there by taking the warm lake road to the west side of the lake and driving south for seven miles on a series of gravel forest service roads. It is a popular area with a number of camping locations, interesting trails and good fishing.  Video    See More Pictures The camp site we used is on the South Fork of the Salmon river and is large enough that multiple groups can use it. There is good access to water for the stock and trees for high-lines.  There is plenty of room for a number of trailers.Ten members of Squaw Butte signed up for this event, Janelle & Troy Weeks, Kelly Ragland, Shelly Duff, David Benson, Charles & Lorraine Chick, Fanny Berki, Shannon Schantz, Nancy Smith
and Rob Adams. Joining us were three members of the Boise National Forest northern trail crew, Hailey Brookins, Tom Shearer and Anthony Snelling. With this large number of people and stock we broke up into three different trail teams. Some explored the trail and roads available from this trail head, while the trail crew tackled the Yellow Jacket trail. This area has experienced multiple fires and has sections with many dead trees that gravity had not toppled yet. This last winter, many of those trees came down.
 
The team encountered down trees the moment they crossed the river and that continued for the three miles of trail that they completed of this seven mile trail on Saturday. We ran out of time and energy, not trees. We cleared around 50 major trees with chainsaws and a lot of brush and smaller ones with hand saws. It is likely there are 50 more in the remaining four miles.

One tree fell dead center on a bridge, it did no damage, but required a number of careful cuts to remove it.


By 16:30 all but the fisherman had returned to the trail head. We were tired, but all had enjoyed their day in this scenic area of the Boise Nation forest. A shady spot was found, cold beer or other beverages were opened and stories of the day swapped. One group had found a large still standing tree that some fool had tried to cut down, but got scared and stopped before he made the final fall cut. The result was a very dangerous tree ready to fall down over the road. They reported it to a fire ranger who was looking to see if any of the lighting strikes from the Friday night thunder storm had started any fires. That tree will be removed first thing this week, likely by blasting. Dinner was excellent and the talk around the camp fire lasted until the last of the alpine glow left the mountains.

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