September 27th Glade work
Here is the quick rundown for the workday on Sunday.
Focus area will be to finish off work in the zone skiers left of Manitou. I’ve attached a basic map of this zone to email. One thing that I think will make workflow more accessible for folks is starting from the bottom and working uphill. It’s simply easier to move uphill than downhill on steep slopes. We will have a similar shuttle system from the parking lot getting people in position to do work. Instead of starting at the summit, we’ll shuttle people with the side by side following the orange line down Devils Elbow to the bottom of glade zone. Then work up in teams from there. We will move slowly uphill doing similar work to last time, moving and piling branches. I was able to spend some time this week bucking up some of the larger down debris, so we should be able to move just about everything by hand without tools.
A couple things to note, area marked “shoulder” on the map is a little less steep than “chute” and center of the zone. As we divide up into groups, we will note the “’less steep” option. We expect about 25ish people. Here is a rough breakdown of how we will group up
10 people going up the shoulder, 2 leaders (about halfway up it gets a bit wider and can have one leader stay to the right the other on the left)
10 people going up the chute, 2 to 3 leaders
Remainder going up the side of the zone closer to Manitou “smaller shoulder”, 2 leaders
I expect working to the Summit will take up the first 2 hours or so. When we get to the summit we can take a hydration break and regroup. We will have similar drinks and snacks (though we’ll want to keep the hydration break NA and save the beer and cider for after we’re done walking on steep slopes.) At this point we can give vols an out. If they’ve had enough, note on the sign in sheet that they left at halftime. This is to help track vol hours and also to keep track of numbers and make sure we don’t leave anyone in the woods.
For the second half of the day we will have a few different tasks to split into teams to tackle:
Second round of heading up zone we just worked, doing a little further refinement and adding in some light lopping of low branches and select small diameter trees
Working at the top of the zone, moving/piling some of rocks at the entrance (some stacking/moving will make for cleaner drop into line)
Moving brush on Awful Awful to brush pile just uphill of old snowmaking equipment (photo attached)
A quick note on the Awful Awful work. We have done some thinning of brush in the legacy ski run. It has been bucked up and is ready to be moved. We have a good spot for it near the center of where most of the material is on the ground. Moving it just uphill and near the sides of old snowmaking infrastructure will help keep skiers/riders away from this metal object that is pretty securely in the hill.
SAFETY
One thing we quickly learned last time was to keep teams working at similar height on slope. If rocks or other debris is dislodged and starts moving downhill, it picks up speed fast. So having extra awareness and trying to avoid working above others. If a rock or other piece of debris does come loose it would be good to shout out “ROCK” to make others aware of potential hazard.
First aid kits will be present in each truck and at least one with myself and other LC staff. In the event of someone needing help, find an LC staff member ASAP.