Hello Skiers,

The following report was sent to the FOSM (Friends of the Sandia Mountains) e-group concerning removal of trees down on 10K North Trail in the Sandia Mountains.

Byron Garner, Michael Arndt, and Sam Beard are members of the Ski Club.

Sam

Hello Everyone,

On Wednesday, December 30, nine FOSM volunteers removed ten down trees from 10K North Trail. John Harrington had reported these trees and provided the GPS coordinates of their locations. These coordinates were used to plot the locations on a Google Earth satellite photo relative to 10K N Trailhead to help estimate the distance to be hiked and to locate the trees.

The volunteers worked in two crews – four in a crosscut saw team and five in a chain saw team.

1. Crosscut Saw Team Led by Jim Levesque – Jim reported that this crew removed four trees ranging from 5 to 11 inches in diameter with two personal crosscut saws owned by members of the crew. The volunteers were Jerry Pekarek, Byron Garner, Rav Nicholson, and Jim Levesque. Several FOSM volunteers have collections of one to a dozen vintage and modern crosscut saws (Jim Levesque)

2. Chain Saw Team Led by Lou Romero and Sam Beard – The members of this team were Cliff Giles, Jerry Carroll, Michael Arndt, Lou, and Sam. Jerry carried a chain saw with an 18-inch bar, and Michael a saw with a 16-inch bar. These saws were certainly adequate for the trees cut on this outing.  This team removed 11-inch and 16-inch trees. In addition to these trees that were reported by John, this crew removed four 5-inch hang-ups that over the trail and low enough to be hazards to skiers and visitors on horses. (Sam Beard)

The volunteers hiked with either snowshoes or traction devices on their boots on the packed snow.

Photographs of the project are presented in the attached Word document.

Jim and Sam

Sent from Mail for Windows 10