Volunteer Hours Logged Since 2011:
Fire Restoration
Angeles National Forest
December 5, 2025
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Carson Blaker
On Sunday, November 23rd 2025 MWBA took a group of 22 volunteers into the Eaton Fire burn zone to work on the lower portion of Sunset Ridge Trail. This section of trail starts at the bottom of Lowe Rd. and descends to the Millard Campground. The hillside it traverses burned in the Eaton Fire.
Our October volunteer day was spent brushing the entire trail, which was overgrown with grass, and beginning some treadwork projects. Several slides were cleared and the original bench restored, making these sections better than they have been in years!
Our November work day focused on treadwork. This section of trail has had some problems since before the fire, but the large amount of recent rain allowed us to reassess solutions to those problems and implement sustainable fixes that MWBA is proud to say make the trail segment better than it has been in over a decade.
Near the top are some relatively flat sections that retain water and result in the kind of mud holes that are mostly absent from trails in the rest of the forest. In the past these stayed wet for weeks after rain, and trail users preferred to route around the mess, widening the tread. MWBA volunteers de-bermed the outside edge of the trail, widening existing rolling grade dip drains, and built up the grade reversals of these drains. We believe water will flow more naturally over these sections resulting in better drainage and less mud.
Along the westernmost section of the trail there has been bad rutting for long enough that double-track tread had developed and users chose between "the high road" along the outside of the trail or "the low road" in the rut. Due to high clay content in the soil the outside edges of the ruts were hard as concrete when dry (which was most of the time) so the project was difficult nay impossible to fix to our standard. The recent rain left MWBA volunteers with very saturated soils and we were able to break up the outside edges and use the dirt to fill in the ruts. Rolling grade dips were installed at the top of the problem sections to help prevent water capture along the trail and ruts reforming in the future.
We also took the opportunity to widen a few sections of tread that had only partially slid over but were therefore narrow.
Loma Alta park has been a lovely spot to enjoy lunch after our restoration work days.
While there are still some longer-term and out-of-scope projects we have noted on this section of trail, we are happy to report that it should be considered 'restored' after the fire and is ready to use as soon as the Eaton Fire burn closure is lifted. As of now this trail and area remains CLOSED.
