The Tale of Aptos Creek Fire Road

By John Fuchs (mostly)

Until recently driving, walking or biking up Aptos Creek Fire Trail, the entrance into Nicene Marks State Park in Aptos, has been a mixture of blinding dust and spine-rattling potholes. This has been especially true during the drought of the past two years. The problem was getting everyone on the same page – the state, county, and volunteer organizations – trying to make grading improvements and dust abatement to the Fire Road that is used by hundreds of hikers and bikers each day during the summer and by the year-round residents who live along the road.

Well, it finally happened! This past May the State Parks, the county, Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, Advocates of Nisene Marks Park interested residents and some really great local businesses and volunteers all came together to make it materialize. This is their story as if it were a movie told on a DVD.

 

Locations

The locations in this story of hope, heartbreak and eventual triumph were:

• Aptos Creek Fire Road between the Kiosk parking lot and the steel bridge
• Board room of the Advocates for the Forest of Nisene Marks
• Board room of the Nisene Committee/Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks
• The inner sanctums of State Park’s offices

Time-line: January 13 thru May 14, 2014

Cast of Characters: without naming names they were:

• Flip-chart Man: Equal parts enthusiastic, sincere and over-bearing (bordering on annoying)
• The Wise Man: A gentle man with a sparkle in his eyes and generosity in his soul
• Friendly Women: Empathetic, capable, hard-working, experienced, knowledgeable and award winning
• The Ringleader: Trying to bring order to chaos, imposing gag-orders and finding expectations
• Uniformed (and carrying a gun) Man: Desperately trying to hold back a tsunami tide of un-armed marauders
• Uniformed Woman: Always the epitome of class, patience and reasoned restraint
• 2nd (slightly dirtier) Uniformed Man: Unbridled enthusiasm coupled with a can-do spirit, precise and smart
• Supreme Leader: Approachable… makes things happen… a force for the good! (Our Hero!)
• Reasonable Woman: Caught up in the cross winds, she perseveres with dignity and sustains herself by giving, forgiving and baking
• Men at Work Workers: Truly the backbone of this story and ‘salt of the earth’ characters … and yes that was a little Magnesium Chloride humor!
• Devil’s advocate: Pure lignum ran strong in his veins
• Assorted skeptics, nay-sayers and scally-wags: A passionate, colorful and vocal group

Happy (for everybody!) Ending

Neither paving nor chip-sealing was possible due to expense and long term approval process

The binding agent Dust Off was chosen by the State Parks Resource Ecologist (Chris Spore)

500 Tons of Base rock

760 Gallons of Dust-Off

5 days to complete with a grader, rented roller, rented water truck and 6-7 incredible State Parks workers and one over involved Advocate member!

“It shimmers in the dappled sunlight as the smiling and grateful families with strollers, vehicles, cyclists, runners, and equestrians share the dust free fire road in perfect harmony!”

Slowly fade to black, cut the music …

Run the Credits!

•••

A huge Thank You to Ethan and Mike and everyone who contributed to make this happen. Augie, Barbi and all their staff worked very hard in the planning stages and more importantly to overcome all the daily problems that are always associated with a job with this many moving parts.

Spectacular teamwork and result. And a big Thank You to Friend and The Advocates for helping us realize the things we can accomplish when we just say, “Let’s do it!”

Patrice Edwards of Time Publishing Group who is an in-holding resident came out and took some photos. She was delighted with the improvements and very hopeful that the binding agent will make a difference.

Advocate board member, Maureen Thrash, got up at 4:30 in the morning to make incredible cookies for the hard working State Parks crew. Judging by the size of the bag, they ought to get about 10 cookies each. Oooh, they were good!

Ethan Harmon was ‘the man’ on the grader. I had to double-check him to make sure he was getting the grade between 4 and 5%. His smart level read 4.4%. Ethan was awesome. I think he might be the only person that had more enthusiasm for this project than I had.  He’s already lobbying hard to do it again next spring. I like his spirit!

The roadwork is on schedule and rumor has it that we might even be under budget. That’s not the most common outcome on construction projects. Hard hats off to State Parks for pulling this one off~!

The End!

Special Features

Day 1 – The excitement is building on the fire-road. I met with the crew today @ lunch time. They are doing an incredible job on the road. Base rock truck and transfers are moving in and out. Bill Holland and the water truck are keeping the road base wet. A team of Augie Ceballos, Barbi Barry, Mike Biglay and Ethan Harmon are grading, spreading, and rolling base rock and/or supervising. It’s a fantastic and precise operation. Ethan is out there making sure there is 4-5% slope. This should help a lot with those areas that notoriously develop potholes.

The parade of base rock trucks will finish up tomorrow for a grand total of 500 tons of base rock. The binding agent will be applied on Friday, and that will complete the job. We will cross our fingers and hope the Dust-Off really does keep the dust down.

Day 2 of the Nisene Fire Road improvements is in the books, and it’s a wonderful chapter indeed. Vehicles, runners, walkers and cyclists were ‘actually enjoying’ the road thru the Forest for the first time in a long time.

See photos for just a couple quick snapshots of the activities. The last of the base-rock was delivered, graded, wetted and compacted. The State Parks crew ran a little short on time and base-rock. About 90% of the road got ‘armored’, but the entire road got graded and improved.

Great job everybody!

Sequel: Will there be a Sequel? Only time will tell. We are hoping the Dust Off will keep the dust down at least until the winter rains come again. And in the meantime, this whole cast of characters could get together again in the hopefully not to distant future for new epics such as “The Ped/Cylcing Bride over Mangels Creek” or “The Hawks Peak Loop Trail”. These are both suspense/dramas but firmly based in reality and community need.

Volunteers are always welcome by the Advocates of Nisene Marks Park www.advocatesfnm.org and the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks www.thatsmypark.org