12/15/07 Manoa Cliff Trail Work Day Report

Thanks again to all the people who took time out of their busy lives to get out and help with this trail work. All the runners in January will appreciate your efforts as will all the hiker’s who use these trails! Aloha, Bob

We had a group of ten that met at the Pumping Station at 6 am- Jeff Fong brought two of his good friends, Johnny Landeza, and Heather McCafferty (who turns out to be my long lost cousin- we are both from the Sutherland family in Scotland!). The rest of the team: Greg Cuadra, Earnest Tay, Fish, Ed Radetich, Gordon Lau, Larry Inouye, and yours truly, PJ.

It was another windy rainy day, and we had to dodge downed branches on the way up Tantalus drive- near the top, a big tree had fallen, and was being guarded by a police car with flashing lights- we were lucky to get around the obstacle and get to our destination.

We parked at the Moleka trailhead, and started up the Cliff trail in the dark. We hiked almost up to the top, lugging our backpacks and tools, to survey the areas we wanted to attack. We left Gordon, Larry, Earnest and Fish for the biggest job- a forty foot section of badly eroded trail, that they leveled this blustery morning.

My cousin Heather, Ed and I took the first slide area down from there, and Greg, Jeff and Johnny started down the hill for another slide area. All in all, we must have widened about 6 or 7 slide areas, and tried to dig in some drainage troughs- some areas were so wet with the rain and the water seeping out from natural springs, that it was hard to keep ahead of the slop.

Nonetheless, we made quick progress, and were able to head out a little early, finding Bozo (after having done her 50 mile training run the night before) trimming overhanging branches of bamboo.

It was a chilly ride back down the hill! Thank you Jeff for driving us and the tools. Thanks to everyone for all the hard backbreaking work, and rearranging your training schedules for this work day. Between Wednesday and Saturday’s work, we had 17 workers- pretty awesome family!