Trail Maintenance

I like to hike on the trail that runs parallel to the bike trail. This trail is on BLM land, same general location as the washing machine pit. But I don't like being poked and bloodied by Spanish Thistle. This type of invasive weed which is native to California has spread all up and down the state.

Spanish Thistle is about as painful an encounter as cactus. This year has been especially wet with much greater than average rainfall in Northern California. As a result the normally small patches of thistle scattered throughout the trail has been replaced by huge fields of thistle, encroaching on my favorite walkways and making hiking an unpleasant experience for myself and Fluffy.

I decided that this situation was simply unacceptable. Today after walking through the trail one more time with Fluffy, I dropped her off at home and loaded up the car with shovel and clippers. Temperature was not too bad, around 86 degrees. Nevertheless, I brought a thermos filled with cold water. I arrived around 1 PM and surveyed the scene one more time before I got to work.

Thistle Everywhere

I thought I could get the whole thing done within about an hour. That turned out to be an optimistic prediction. An hour turned into 3 hours. I was pouring sweat after about 10 minutes and taking cold water breaks about every 5 minutes. The 2nd section had much thicker growth and took longer than the 1st section. I was exhausted but my job was still not done. There was a little rock hump that has always been a pain in the rump to climb up because it is slippery. I chopped down the hump and created a makeshift staircase out of large boulders.

Implements Used

My job done, it was time to go home. I really should have worn gardening gloves because my hands were a bloody mess. I gulped down about a gallon of water when I got home and immediately took a refreshing shower. Ahhhhhh yes.