Log Condition/Chop List Sticky Thread Proposal

[Cowper]

Someone who was paying more attention than me has pointed out (privately) that the name "chop list" may not be appropriate. On the other hand, informing our members and board readers WHERE hazards are is completely appropriate. Would everyone still be motivated to do this if it can serve only as a "wood report" or "hazards report", and not be used as a "call to action"?

[canoe]

Randy is right, I don't see that the slide on Richland Creek rd/Falling Water rd, from the south will be fixable for a longggg time. There is more mountain ready to slump with the next big rain event. Dale

[jermdog]

move

[Josh Sanford]

I have a good friend who owns a road-prep and gravel business. He has looked at the landslide on the way to Richland Creek. His take on it was that their guy could fix it in less than a day of work. He also said that the Forest Service is concerned that if it is fixed then more of the loose stuff would slide onto the road. And finally he said the FS said that they can't just push the soil covering the road over the side of the road that is downhill of the slide because it is wilderness area and that would violate the regs. I didn't know the wilderness area was so close to the road, but they tell him it is.

[Fish]

Well, seems to me that the wilderness area rearranged itself rather substantially on its own... pushing dirt off the side of the road would seem kind of negligible. :-)

I don't doubt it's against official regs and such, but I bet it's more that USFS doesn't want to mess with maintaining that road in general, like they don't want to maintain Richland Cr. campground. It might be nice if the area was even more popular, since that would mean that enough folks might complain about the closures to get USFS to spend some of their limited budget on it. (Ironic how that works...) I know money is pretty dang tight for USFS right now (as it is for lots of folks), so I bet it's a financial decision as much as anything. Of course, I don't work for USFS, nor am I a mind reader, so that's just my guess and opinion. :)

So, I'm a talker (obviously), but I'm also occasionally a world-class doer. Anyone have any good ideas what we could do to get Falling Water Road re-opened? Write letters to congresspeople? (Not critical ones, but rather urging them to divert some money toward this road.) Some kind of Adopt-A-Road program? Just sneak in with a bulldozer before anyone can figure out what's happened? (kidding... sort of) See if the County or State wants to help out or adopt the road? (That seems a long shot in a tough budget year, but who knows?)

Surely there are better ideas than what I can come up with? If I thought we had a good game plan, I'd work to get the team out of the huddle and ready to play...

Thanks for your report, Josh.

- Fish

[Cowper]

I'd sure hate to see this done in a way that made it more likely for that load to make it to the creek. There's enough material in there to turn many FW rapids and possibly some of Richland into a Class I/II gravel shoal creek that no longer resembles the creeks we know and love.

Fish, I think you're right - we need to figure out how to engage in some dialog with FS and/or government officials to let them know how important this access is to many different groups of people. I was telling a non-boater about how a certain group of boaters had worked 4 days to clear the ice storm damage near Richland, and several different folks started telling me how great that was because they accessed the stream for fishing. They know the individual holes where fish hide in the summer the same way we know the boulders in each rapid.

[FarPastGone]

Just wanted to give a couple updates for those going out this weekend...

Stepp Creek has new wood in it, beyond the two places that I remember wood there were two more additional places with wood...and lots of wood on top of boulders (must have had a big flood in there, maybe last night). Just scout what you think you need to.

EFLB was raging today, and bout the time we got in the 3rd gorge there was lots of wood coming down river...like whole trees. Don't know where it ended up, but might just want to be on the look out.

-Matt