Santa Cruz, CA Arboristsite GTG

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Bob95065

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Santa Cruz, CA Arboristsite GTG

I would like to invite you to a AS GTG in the mountains above Santa Cruz, CA the weekend of April 29th. This GTG will follow the format of the Bothe-Napa GTG held in November every year - it will more of a work GTG. There will be plenty of fun with a focus on helping make our mountains fire safe. We will provide camping in neighbor’s yards and portable toilets. There will also be a shower for use. I will work on arranging food for the group but some meals may not be provided. I’ll update those who are coming as it gets closer.

Our neighborhood was at the edge of the 2020 CZU Lightning Fire . We banded together as a neighborhood to make our community fire safe. We held work days where we created defensible space for the elderly and needy in our neighborhood. We also applied for a Firewise Certification that we got in the fall of last year.

Like the GTG in Napa one of the things we’ll do is fell problem trees in our neighborhood to continue the effort to make it fire safe. As we work in the neighborhood this spring we plan to mark trees that are beyond our ability for the GTG. In the 2020 fire over 900 homes were lost in our mountains. We’ll have fun while making a neighborhood safe.

We are less than a mile from Henry Cowell State Park which is home to old-grown redwood trees. Sunday we’ll spend some time in the park to see these giants. With an estimated 5% of the old growth trees left it’s a treat to hike among them. If you would like to see the ocean the beaches in Santa Cruz are a 10 minute drive south.

If you are interested please post in this thread so we can get a headcount for food and drink.
 
We’ve been lots of times to your Santa Cruz mountains, and almost yearly to Cowell SP.

We live in the mountains east of San Diego, in a pine-oak forest, and surrounded by Cleveland National Forest. Our community has had its local Fire Safe Council (FSC) for the past 18 years, and Communities around ours have their own Councils. FSC work parties (GTGs) in our local Councils have made fire breaks in the forest around our homes. FSC Grants have paid for professionals to create more extensive fire breaks. Cooperation with and help from USFS have helped clean up the National Forest around us.

In 2007 the forest had a huge wildfire. USFS and CalFire triaged our community, found that most of the homes were savable because of the clearances we made through FSC work parties, and busted their asses to stop the fire.

Here’s a suggestion. Look into this non-profit State-wide organization called Fire Safe Council. There are benefits to becoming a local Fire Safe Council: State-wide and local support, access to Grants, mutual assistance and contacts that are able and willing to help your community reach greater fire safety.

Being a local FSC also opens the door to working to become an NFPA Fire-Wise Community, under a separate process. The Fire-Wise program has a great benefit in helping to affect the ability to obtain fire insurance. Insurance companies tend to look favorably on a community being part of the Fire-Wise program.

Neither of these programs have any governance by local or State governments, so there’s no big-government stuff here. You might want to see if your community wants to look into these programs. Be ready for the next fire, be safe.
 
Thank you for your replies, great information. We got our FireWise cert last fall and are in the process of applying for grants. The FireSafe Council link is very useful; thank you for posting it.

What I am trying to do here is get a group of chainsaw enthusiasts together for a weekend. I don't have enough property to get some logs together for cutting cookies so I thought we can work on some projects to make the road safe. This is what we do in Napa every year and it's a blast - I look forward to going to the Napa GTG all year. Plus we live close to old growth trees that I thought some guys from out of the area would like to see.

henry-cowell-redwoods-state-park-tree.jpg

henry-cowell-redwoods-state-park-pahway.jpg
 
It's been several years since I've been out to Santa Cruz. When I was younger, I used to vacation with friends who live in the area. We always made a trip down to Santa Cruz, and went out to the Dolphin for some fresh steamed crab. Absolutely beautiful piece of the country. Going to be too far to make it form central Indiana, but wishing you guys the best!
 
It's been several years since I've been out to Santa Cruz. When I was younger, I used to vacation with friends who live in the area. We always made a trip down to Santa Cruz, and went out to the Dolphin for some fresh steamed crab. Absolutely beautiful piece of the country. Going to be too far to make it form central Indiana, but wishing you guys the best!
I grew up in Illinois and went to school in NE Indiana. I've been in SC County since 2001. I've never felt more at home anywhere more than the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Remember the San Jose Airport us only 40 minutes away....
 
I've hestiated to say how big the trees are that we will encounter because we aren't done flagging them in the neighborhood. I've identified some small leaners in an area we worked in the last month. They are about 12" to 16" in diameter. I'll get some pictures and post them.

We have some people at the top that have some larger trees that need to go. In the next couple weeks I'll get a list together and post pictures and sizes. There's a few redwoods I've seen that are candidates.

If you are interested in this GTG please send me a PM and I'll send you my address. We need a headcount for food and other details. So if your coming please send me a PM and post on this thread.

Bob
 
I’m in bob, be there Friday. Jess might come down for Sunday. Possibly a climber (lee) will be coming with me . I’ll pm you also. Bringing saws, throw line, bull rope, blocks, wedges and wedge whacker and pizza for Friday evening… maybe a couple beers… Probably not bringing the truck with winch… you have one right?
 
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