Hello everyone,

Well, with 14 volunteers on Thursday -- and with an additional boost from Eric Russell working solo hours a couple days, plus two SRD staff (Trails Foreman Joseph Jaffa-Martinez and crew member Jeff Cervantes) putting in time before and during the work day -- the trail construction crew reached a long-awaited milestone on December 1st: the new Challenge Trail extension now connects with the upper end of the old Crest Road! We've been working towards this goal since June (or since last Sept if you count our work north from Dry Camp). See attached report for photos.

Note that this does not mean this section of the extension is open yet!  Some work still remains to make the connection up higher at Tree Spring. As weather and ground conditions permit, we will focus on completing that connection, and/or will keep working lower down, continuing to extend the Challenge Trail from the old Crest Road east towards Bill Spring (see Sam Beard's report from clearing corridor along this final section).

Thursday's volunteers were Jenny Blackmore, Sim Cook, Phil Cromer, Luis Cuadros, Byron Garner, Bruce Hansche, Jim Houle, Larry Larrichio, Pat & Mike Madden, Tony Pachelli, Eric Russell, Cleve Sharp and Roland Stumpf.

Jenny Blackmore

FOSM Project Leader