It’s the busy season for PCTA volunteer and corps crews all along the PCT, as they cut back overgrown brush, retread eroding trail and remove fallen logs. While this work is happening in all three states, I was lucky enough to catch a lot of the action in Northern California, where I visited last month with PCTA Regional Representative Ian Nelson. We spent a night each with Lyons’ Pride and the NorCal crew as they worked different spots in need along the trail. Here’s the second of two installments.
The mountains of the Shasta–Trinity National Forest in Northern California are well known as bear country, but in the trail-building community here, it’s simply Lyons’ country.
John Lyons, the man behind the PCTA’s Lyons’ Pride volunteer trail crew, has been plying these woods and trails since he retired at age 57 and moved to Etna, California in 1997.
He’s a longtime member and organizer with the Back Country Horsemen of California and was volunteering on trail crews for that group’s Top of the State Unit when he got a call from the PCTA sometime in 1999. Trail Operations Director Rueben Rajala was recruiting new volunteers and was relentless, John said. “He was a guy you got on the phone with and couldn’t get off.”
John Lyons (wearing Bob Griffis’ hardhat) climbing another approach trail to the PCT.
John spent his career as an underground plumber. In the early 1980s he was living and working near Monterey Bay and was leading trail crews for the BCHC in the Los Padres National Forest, along California’s central coast. He and his wife Gail used to horse pack for fun. His lifestyle and volunteering on trail crews went hand in hand.
In 2000, he got Lyons’ Pride up and running though it wasn’t called that for a few years. At any rate, for the last 15 years, the group has helped keep the PCT a viable concern in the rugged mountains of Northern California that include the Trinity Alps, Marble Mountain, Castle Crags and Russian wilderness areas.
John runs a great camp, whether he packs in with his mules or, as in our most recent visit, drives his loaded pickup and horse trailer to a site off a rocky forest road. His crew loves him and their time together. They do about three trips a year and their latest hitch was eight days long, including a day on each end for travel, set up and tear down.
John Lyons and his 120-year-old crosscut saw.
Ian and I arrived as the crew was settling into their newly constructed camp below a saddle where the Sisson Callahan Trail crosses the PCT to the east. We got there just in time for burgers and beer, never a disappointment.
Mornings come early in the Lyons’ Pride camp. I was the last one to breakfast of bacon, eggs and potatoes. One by one the crew made lunches, filled water bottles and grabbed tools for the short but steep hike up to the PCT.
From there we spread out. A handful headed south to cut a large dry blowdown that blocked the trail. Using a crosscut saw, they took turns making one cut, then another, and within an hour, they were rolling the log off the trail with a heavy metal rock bar. The rest of the crew headed north along the ridge, working worn, eroding tread and moving a couple of large boulders from the middle of the trail that would have made any horse passage difficult.
PCTA Regional Representative Ian Nelson shows volunteer Gary Lee the lay of the land.
The trail in this area crosses a mix of public and private land, though it’s hard to tell the difference. There’s little sign of timber-cutting activity here. Wildflowers and humming birds were abundant, as were thru-hikers.
Many of the crew members are longtime volunteers with Lyons’ Pride. John has a loyal following, and at 76, he’s moving admittedly slower these days. He said he’s more of a camp host than a trail worker but likes to survey the crew’s efforts “to make sure it’s done my way.”
Sure enough, he ambled up to the ridge in the cool of the morning, took some snapshots of the logout and then walked north to get in on moving one of the big rocks. He still wants to be in the fight.
John and Ian enjoy another chat. The two have worked closely for more than a decade.
“I love being out, enjoying the outdoors, remembering what I used to be able to do,” he said.
Mike Tillinghast of Ashland, Oregon, has spent the last 10 years volunteering with Lyons’ Pride. He is the 2014 Big Bend Maintainer of the Year, and hiked the PCT between 2010 and 2012.
“Working out here is what got me inspired to hike the trail,” he said. “You talk to hikers when you’re out working and their enthusiasm is infectious. This is the most fun thing I do all year and I’m retired and I do some pretty cool stuff.”
Molly Cromwell and Bob Griffis of Palm Desert were also part of the crew. They’ve been traveling all summer to volunteer with a number of crews along the trail. I met them on a PCTA Trail Gorillas project in April near Mount San Jacinto.
The crosscut saw makes short work of a dead tree across the trail.
“He’s the greatest, by far one of our favorite crew leaders,” Molly said of John. “He knows every trail around here. He takes really good care of his crews.”
Mike Taylor of Etna has spent 11 years working alongside John and enjoys the outdoors and the physical nature of the work.
“You come out and work your ass off and I don’t mind it,” he said. “You see something concrete when you’re done. You can see that you’ve accomplished something.”
PCTA volunteer Gary Lee has spent 12 years on Lyons’ Pride crews and said there is something special going on. He thinks about the time when John will no longer be able to join them.
Trails merge.
“We’ve grown up together. We’ve grown old together,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to shake out when he hangs up his helmet.”
John thinks about it, too. He laments the fact that it’s becoming increasingly more difficult every year.
“I’ve built up great friendships with these people,” he said. “I’ve had many good times. It’s just become part of my blood.”
The PCT follows the ridgeline in beautiful, exposed terrain.
Cuts made, time to roll the massive log clear of the trail.
A hummingbird enjoying the wildflowers.
John Lyons takes a break from a team attempt to move a heavy boulder off the trail.