Misery Ridge Trail Isn't Open Quite Yet, But These Volunteers Are Working On It
UPDATE JULY 6, 2020: MISERY RIDGE REOPENS
June 25, 2020
A small and dedicated team of the Smith Rock Group has been working hard for the rest of us, spending countless hours of their personal time getting the Misery Ridge Trail in shape to reopen safely. Back on March 23 Smith Rock State Park was closed due to COVID-19 restrictions per Oregon State Parks and Recreation, and when it reopened on May 14, restrictions remained in place for Misery Ridge Trail and the Chute Trail due to issues with social distancing and to reduce the impacts on first responders due to potential for accidents on very popular trails that needed maintenance.
The trail suffered significant erosion damage from the big storm a few weeks ago. In addition, when the Annual Smith Rock Spring Thing volunteer event was canceled last April due to COVID-19 restrictions, the yearly infusion of hundreds of hours of trail maintenance from 250 volunteers was cut short.
Erosion on the back side of the Misery Ridge Trail Loop, coming down from the ridge and back to the River Trail.
The trail closure of Misery Ridge to visitors also presented an opportunity—unimpeded access for trail work. That’s when the Smith Rock Group board members and trained project leaders, together with park staff came up with a plan. Individuals work on their own projects, maintain 20’ of distance between volunteer workers, and they each work with their own set of tools. Then they got to work. The result? Nothing short of phenomenal.
These pictures, courtesy of Ian Caldwell, AKA the “Mayor of Smith Rock,” tell the story. While there’s still a bit of work to do before the trail can reopen, we wanted to give you a peek behind the scenes to be aware of how much preparation goes into supporting the most popular trail that sees the bulk of Smith Rock State Park’s close to 900,000 annual visitors.
Half of the Misery Ridge Trail Loop had erosion similar to this and the Smith Rock Group restored it to much safer hiking conditions.
Paul Tomlinson installing a culvert under the stairs to drain water. During heavy thunderstorms the water used to get trapped behind one side of the stairs, making it run all the way down the trail switchbacks, causing surface erosion. Now the water will flow onto the hillside and never touch the switchbacks.
The trail became cupped and water was trapped on the trail surface creating erosion.The other 2 photos feature David Potter finishing a rock wall. Originally this was a Spring Thing project many years ago. The wall just needed to be extended further. At this location the trail was failing and was half the width that it should have been. The trail was brought back to its original 4 foot width after trail erosion had reduced it to less than a foot wide, allowing for better social distancing.
Smith Rock State Park Ranger Patrick Tinsley prepping a site to place a large flat rock be part of the trail surface and stop the erosion on the outside of the trail. The rock was poised to slide and block the trail, and now it’s part of keeping the trail intact.
Dearric Winchester working on a corner that got eroded from rainfall. He constructed a rock wall and then “in-sloped” the corner to get the water to shed.The last photo shows the completed corner with the rock wall in place, also restoring the full width of the switchback corner to its original 3 feet from the eroded 18 inches. This made the corner usable for hikers to step aside and allow others to pass safely.
In addition to Misery Ridge Trail restoration, several volunteers from the Smith Rock Group (Jaxson Landrus and Katy Lanfri) also cleaned all the trails leading to the main climbing areas from the Gullies all the way to Asterisk Pass the day before the park opened.
Ian Caldwell rebuilt this rock wall to make it more vertical and stable, which created a wider trail above it and below it. The picture with the blue sky is looking uphill, and the other is the same wall, looking downhill from the corner. The trail surface also was very rough. He hauled at least 10 gallons of water up to the trail to pack down the dirt. Water drainage will be added where the flag is on the top left corner of the “downhill” photo.
Thanks so much Smith Rock Group volunteers and park staff for all your hard work. We promise to not cut the switchbacks and to educate others whenever possible to be good trail stewards! Oh yeah—the Smith Rock Group hauled two truckloads of branches to discourage the “Swithback Cutters.”