2014 Hood Mountain RRC Service Project

Every year we schedule a service project at one of the Sonoma County Regional Parks in support of the Redwood Regional Challenge program.  This gives us a chance to help the parks out, see a park that may be new to us and to earn the corresponding rockers.  This year however, our plan was preempted by an Eagle Scout candidate.  Austin, a den mate of one of our scouts was setting up projects in a number of RRC parks as his Eagle Project.  Seeing as this was a scout we knew, we jumped in.  This unfortunately meant that we had to bump our spring backpacking trip a week forward which meant that it fell on Mother’s Day, but a bunch of Moms joined us that weekend, so maybe it wasn’t a terribly bad thing. 

As you can imagine, for a program as big as this one was, there had to be a lot of planning, and several meetings were held to orient everyone.  In the process, the troop selected Hood Mountain as their park destination.  The troop has chosen Hood Mountain before.  For the inaugural RRC weekend, we did a back packing service project along with Troops 32 and 707 at the back country campsites and it was awesome!  This time however we would be working at the Pythian Road entrance which we had not seen before. 

The troop formed up and headed over to the proper staging area on Pythian.  Unfortunately, deep in to May, a lot of the spring sports had started and so attendance was light.  Still, 13 scouts and 3 leaders (including one who’s boy wasn’t on the outing) showed up to help out.  We met our ranger and got oriented on the job to be done.  We were clearing vegetation back from the trail where it had become overgrown.  We grabbed tools and started up the trail.

The Pythian Road part of the trail turns out to be just magical!  The trail winds in and out of an oak woodland forest alongside the road.  The troop cut back the vegetation that had crowded the trail and threatened to unseat equestrians.  In the middle of this we encountered a large tree that had fallen and had been cut in half to clear the trail! 

Toward the end of the project, the troop encountered a meadow overgrown with French Broom.  This nasty, invasive plant is encroaching everywhere it seems and is tough to remove.  To do so, we had a tool that was a combinatation of vice grips, a floor jack, and a huge lever.  The boys took to this immediately.  They grabbed the trunks and wrenched the plants from the ground.  In no time a large part of the meadow was cleared.

All too soon, it was time to head back to the parking lot.  While there, the troop heard a little bit about the history of the park.  Then it was back into the vehicles and home.

Participants: Bryce, Owen, Evan, Sebastian, Diego, Carl, Eric, Angelo, Devon

Leaders:  Mr. Polkinghorn, Mr.St. John, Mr. Frazee, Mr.Bell

Lessons Learned:  You can do a several day backpacking trip through several of the sites on the mountain if you ask nicely! We hate French Broom!