Volunteers Needed for National Trails Day Project

Work Will Help Rebuild Trails Burned During the Jesusita Fire

Large portions of the Jesusita canyon trail above Moreno Ranch were burned heavily, leaving slides and rockfall issues along many sections.

Mark Saturday, June 13 on your calendar. This is the first opportunity the community will have to help rebuild trails damaged during the Jesusita Fire. Volunteers will meet at Skofield Park at 8AM on the 13th and from there carpool to a number of locations to help move rocks off the trails, remove loose dirt and other scree materials that have slid down on the trails and whatever else needs to be done to make the trails safe for use.

Jesusita Trail near Inspiration Point was the first of the local trails to be impacted by the fire. It will take a community effort to rebuild all of the trails impacted during the Jesusita Fire.

The project will last until 2PM and afterwards volunteers will be treated to food generously donated by Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch at Skofield Park. Please wear long sleeve shirts and long pants, sturdy hiking type boots and if you have them a helmet (bike helmets are fine) and gloves. Eye protection (sunglasses) are recommended as well. We’ll have gloves and helmets available at Skofield Park for those who don’t have them along with all of the tools and training you’ll need.

No experience in trail work is needed – just an enthusiastic interest in helping us rebuild the trails. Work will be done along Rattlesnake Canyon Trail, the Tunnel Connector, Tunnel Trail down to the connector and on Jesusita Trail. Young adults 14 or over are also welcome to help out as well but we ask that parents accompany them on the work project.

Slides in upper Rattlesnake Canyon below Tin Can Flats will need to be cleaned out to make passage safe.

All of the above trails have received major damage and much of it won’t be repaired soon unless the community chips in and helps. Almost all of Jesusita Trail from Cater Filtration Plant to Mission Canyon has been burned out to some degree. Tunnel Trail has almost no vegetation left on it from the lower trailhead to the top, with the exception of the last few hundred yards. Tunnel Connector has been completely burned out as well. Though Rattlesnake has received less amount of damage, portions of the trail just below Tin Can Flat have slides along it that are almost impossible to get through. The upper three-fourths mile of the Cold Spring West Fork Trail is also completely burned out.

Trail Volunteers Needed: Over the next year, local trail organizations will continue to work with Los Padres Forest to help rehabilitate trails damaged during the Jesusita Fire. The Santa Barbara Trails Council (sbtrails.org) will be coordinating efforts among the many local trails organizations to support the rehabilitation projects. SBTC encourages you to join with them to help rebuild the trails.

More than 95% of Tunnel Trail burned, leaving many sections looking like this.

“This is not something we can fix with one or two trail projects,” Santa Barbara District Wilderness and Trails Manager Kerry Kellogg explained. “The hillsides are extremely unstable and as we move into the winter season, there will be a tremendous amount of additional erosion control needed as well as ongoing projects to remove rocks and slice materials. This is a several year effort.”

Adding your name to the volunteer list for the burn area rehabilitation projects is easy: simply use the Trails Council Volunteer Form to sign up.