July 14-17 was spent getting the Blodgett Trail cleared. A series of microbursts left a multitude of downed trees in tricky jacksaw configurations that required a ton of limbing and site clean-up before any good assessment of how the trees could be cut and moved could be done. The project went well, thevolunteers had fun, but the work was tough going. We were able to cut about 1.25 miles of trail beyond the campsite at 7-mile meadow. Four saw teams cut 151 trees, many of which were in the 35-40 inch diameter range. That said, they had some dynamic trees that moved a lot when cut and quite a few root balls that stood up with quite a bit of tree trunk still attached. With safety and caution a priority we completed the project in good shape.

Hikers who came from the Elk Summit/Big Sand Lake area in Idaho said the blowdown continues to the junction of trails 19 and 310 with a considerable amount of blowdown over in Idaho as well. The hikers estimated that there are about 300 more trees down on the trail between where we finished and Blodgett Pass.

We are moving hitches around to focus on getting Blodgett cleared which means other trails will be left for another year.