Crew Clears Babyfoot Lake Trail

19 May 2014 | Selma, OR — The Club’s youth crew was busy cleaning up the Babyfoot Lake Trail last weekend as part of their required training. The crew of five conjured at the trailhead early Saturday, packed their bags, got their tools, and started hiking.

Within a couple of minutes we reached a junction that had become unrecognizable due to brush and large downed trees. They learned brushing basics, how to run a crosscut saw and how to preserve a primitive trail prism. At camp the crew picked up leave-no-trace skills and how to cook in the backcountry.

On Sunday we woke up to a drizzly and socked in Babyfoot Lake. In batches fog blew in up the canyon and over the top of us.

On the way out we cleared a few more downed trees and cleaned up more brushy sections of the trail. The sun broke through a few times as we inched our way back to the trailhead.

“I really liked the crosscut,” said Kayla Webre, of Brookings, OR, as rain beaded down her Columbia rain-jacket, and behind her steam rose from Babyfoot Lake.

Katherine McCredie says the hike out was tough. “I felt that pack weighing me down,” she said. “And now when I look at an overgrown bush I just want to get it.”

“It’s a good crew,” said SMC crew leader Aaron Babcock. “The trail looks good.”

In all they cleared over 20 downed trees from the trail, and clipped at least 500 feet of brush that was pushing hikers off the trail. In addition to working to restore trails, the group participates in writing exercises and daily readings from outdoor American authors. The crew receives an educational stipend for college in the fall. They have two more training weekends before they start getting paid to work on long hitches in the Kalmiopsis and Soda Mountain Wilderness Areas.

While we’ve been mostly focused on restoring the hardest to reach and most damaged routes in the Kalmiopsis, the demand has surfaced for us to maintain more heavily used trails, such as the Babyfoot Lake Trail and Pine Flat Trail. If you like hiking in these areas and want to support the youth who make it possible, join our membership today with a tax-deductible donation of $25 or more.