The road not yet opened: On the backbreaking work of trail-building from scratch

As of early February, more than 850 volunteers had spent nearly 9,400 hours building the trail network at Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument since Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship (SCMTS) began the project in 2021. That’s roughly equivalent to one year and 20 days of unceasing work. 

Thirty-six of those hours came on a recent Tuesday morning in January, when I joined an official crew of trail builders. The sun had not yet eclipsed the eastern mountain ridges when I met the group of five volunteers at the entrance of Swanton Berry Farm, just north of Davenport. A professional SCMTS trailsman named Mariano Villegas led our group — all men, almost entirely retirees — a couple miles into Loop 3, where a six-hour day of lifting, spreading and securing dirt followed by lifting, spreading and securing rocks lay ahead. 

I join Villegas and Dan Chen, a retired librarian from UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library, near one of the trail’s tight switchbacks which, from above, resembles a V. Villegas points out a bright blue ribbon hanging from a nearby tree — it’s a note from the trail’s lead architect, Drew Perkins, scribbled in black marker. Perkins explains that one leg of the V has too much of a dip. Our crew needed to fill in and flatten the dip to ensure proper drainage. 

Standing on the switchback’s upper leg, Villegas begins loosening the earth with a pick axe. Chen shovels it up and tosses it down to the trail feature’s lower leg where, rake in hand, I stand ready to spread. Every 15 minutes, our trio rotates duties. The task wraps up after about an hour, sweat dripping from our sun-exposed faces.

Villegas then leads the crew deeper into Loop 3, where a 20-yard stretch of trail requires manual reinforcement. To do this, we must first collect boulders from the surrounding area, then wedge them into the trail floor, creating what looks like a natural cobblestone path. Lugging boulders along an uneven path turns out to be the easy part, requiring only brawn. Sorting through the collected rocks to find the right-sized puzzle piece for our stone mosaic requires brains, and endless patience. 

Tom Wilson, a retired contractor in his 70s who spent his career at the local George H. Wilson Inc, said the trick is to tune one’s compass toward laying the rocks correctly, rather than quickly.  

“We had one section that we worked on, about 100 yards of trail,” Wilson said, smiling. “Rock setting took six weeks. With this, you get anxious and you just want to finish, but the intent is to make sure that we do a quality job.” 

After a couple hours, the cobblestone feature is beginning to take some shape, and I begin to imagine, possibly out loud, how nice this stretch might look to hikers and cyclists when we’re finished. With a certain sadistic excitement, the crew informs me that if we do a proper job, no one will see the boulders — the final step is to cover it all with dirt so it appears as just another part of the trail.  

By 1:30 p.m., the group decides it’s time to pack up and hike back. Sore, sweaty and shy about my absent rock-setting skill, I feel an encouraging hand pat my wet shoulder. 

“I guarantee you that when you walk on this trail here next time, you will feel that you own this piece,” Wilson told me. “This is really a worthwhile thing to do.” 

I take a moment to consider my past six hours and all the ground, according to Wilson, I can now claim. I realize I’ve hardly amassed 30 yards of this 9-mile trail network. Then, thrillingly, it dawns on me what I’ve really earned: a new and lasting appreciation for the human effort beneath every hiking trail I will ever step on.

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