Last year, Redding Crew 22 began a three year project at Plumas-Eureka State Park to improve a trail around Madora Lake to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards.
Plumas-Eureka State Park is located in the northern Sierras, outside of the small town of Graeagle. A one-and-a-half mile trail circles the lake. It has always been a typical trail through the woods. It is narrow. It has rocky sections which can be treacherous to footing. Rebuilding the trail to ADA standards essentially means that when this project is finished, the trail will be wider, flatter, and smoother to allow access to people who would have been challenged to get out and see the lake on the old trail.
Last year, Crew 22 began the involved process of digging the old trail up, widening the tread, building causeway-like wall along the entire trail length, laying down a crushed rock base, covering the fill with suitable quality surface material, and tamping down to ensure a surface smooth enough to accommodate anybody who wants to get out on the trail and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.
Plumas-Eureka State Park is hours away from Redding 22’s home base in Redding, so the crew camps out near the work site for eight days at a time. This type of a project is called a ‘spike’ in the CCC. The crew had been working eight days on-eight days off here for the entire summer, except for one spike on which they had been diverted to assist with a trails problem down around Mono Lake, to the east of Yosemite National Park.
And after many hours of labor, we have a nearly finished trail…
As mentioned, Redding 22 had been spiking up here all summer. The project is scheduled to take three years to complete, but they cannot camp out and work when the trial is buried in snow. Usually.
I visited the crew in early October. The weather was beautiful on that day. C1 Stacy Borowski said that this would be the last spike of the season, and that the nights were getting colder and snow was right around the corner. Little did they know that two days after I left, they would be working in this…
Being CCC, the bad weather was not a deterrent to getting the job done.
Redding 22 will be back up at the park this summer for Year 2 of the three year project. We will keep you posted on their progress!
Thank you to the Shasta-Cascade Service District and Redding 22 for their support with this story, and especially for the additional snow photos.
CCC: Hard Corps 
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