Yesterday ( 4-30 ) Ron Mercer and I met at DCHS for our monthly DCV outing to the springs. We ended up being the only two DCV members at DCHS for the day. Our first project was clearing wood debris from under the big grove of trees, in an area just downstream from the Crab Cooker. There is a nice sandy area there now, brought in by the flood waters. There is also a very large quantity of drift wood. We made good progress clearing out the wood from the sandy area on down to the creek, throwing the debris into the stream. For this project we were also joined by another new visitor to DCHS named Jerry, who I had met on his first visit to the springs last Saturday. He is now interested in joining DCV, and was a big help on this weeks projects. In the grove of trees where we cleaned, pretty much all of the Alder trees are either dead, or in the process of dying. It appears that all of the Alder trees around DCHS have succumbed to some undetermined agent, that has killed them, unfortunately :-( After doing our wood debris project we did some soaking in the pools, and enjoyed the warm sunshine and cool breezes. Then we started our second project of breaking up a very big fire pit on the new beach, and another smaller one, throwing the rocks down under some bushes by the creek, putting the bigger charcoal pieces in a trash bag which we hiked out. Jerry helped us on this project also. We then did another soak in the Aniversary pool and discussed projects for our next DCV monthly meeting. The Aniversary pool drain, on the exterior side of the pool, has a PVC pipe which is pushed into the cracked end of a larger PVC pipe, which extends into the pool itself. We plan to apply some cement over this vulnerable part of the drain pipe to protect in from possible damage. Also we pland to extend more pipe from the end of the drain, to the small cliff which drops into the inlet from the Lagoon to get the shower going again for summer usage. We also are going to try to adapt a valve I have so that the shower flow can be adjustrd to differant levels to insure that the Aniversary pool stays full. Also we plan on hiking more cement down to work on strengthening a flood weakened wall of the Aniversary pool, which was undermined by the high creek flow this winter. It was great weather on Saturday, sunny, warm, and breezy. Ron did a short soak in the Crab Cooker ( 114 degrees ) and then took his first swim of this season in the Lagoon! I figured I'll just wait till the creek warms up a bit more :-) It was a busy day with quite a few visitors. It was a good crowd with now problems for the day. One man killed a rattlesnake, planning on keeping the skin, cut up the snake and ate most of it. Ron ate a piece and said it was tasty. Ron went up on the hillside behind the Arizona Pool ( still under creek waters ) to take various pictures, and came across another rattle snake. Also on his drive up the Bowen Ranch Rd he came across a Gopher snake, and also another Rattlesnake, so visitors need to be watchful of where they are walking, the snakes are out in abundance. People are all making the creek crossing by wading, or swimming now. DCHS Del Mar is looking fine, with lots of folks enjoying its white sand. A couple of guys where playing catch with a soft ball. On the north side of the beach there are some real pretty red blooms going up the hillside. I got some digital pictures as well as some others. I'll try to get some put at my Wizard's pictures link soon for those interested. Ron and I finally hiked out around sunset with two bags of trash we collected during the day. We ended up going to a restaurant for some tasty mexican food to end out our fun day at DCHS :-)
