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2019 Land Use Donation At Work

cj_mike

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
Location
Newcastle, CA
I’d like to give you all an update on what’s happening with your hard earned dollars you used to purchase raffle tickets and t-shirts at Sierra Fest and how they’re being used towards our Land Use Donation for the year.

As you all know, typically we’ve made a donation to the various clubs that support the trails we use to go towards their various trail and campground maintenance projects. Past recipients of our Land Use Donation have been: The Rubicon Trail Foundation, CORVA, Friends of Fordyce, The Four Wheel Drive Club of Fresno, and others, but this year we figure we’re a big enough organization that it’s time to step up and use the $$’s to lead a project of our own!

As we’re frequent campers at Hermit Valley for Sierra Fest and many of us camp there on other weekends throughout the year, we started brainstorming about things we could do there. Thus we’ve been working with the Stanislaus National Forest and the Calaveras Ranger District to organize a project that would benefit the campsite and all people who use it throughout the year, both in the 4x4 community and outside of the 4x4 community, as well as raise awareness about NAXJA, who we are and what we stand for.

After discussion with the Calaveras Ranger District OHV crew manager, Aaron, (also an XJ guy) he mentioned a donation of firepit-BBQ’s would be of great help to the Hermit Valley campground as that is something that would not be approved for federal $’s to purchase for this site.. as we know, there’s only the makeshift rock fire pits at this site and given the focus on fire-safety after the recent large wildfires, we thought this would be a great idea to purchase, donate and install some firepit-bbq’s with a “Donated by NAXJA” note on them for our fellow Hermit Valley campers to use and benefit from while adding a level of fire safety and convenience.

Along with the money we’ve raised as the Sierra Chapter, the NAXJA National board agreed to contribute an additional $500 to this project on top of the $500 annual national NAXJA match to Land Use Donations we receive. From our $$’s raised within the Sierra Chapter and the $1,000 from the National Board, our cash budget for the project is $2,300. Earlier this week, we purchased 9 steel campfire rings that meet the Forest Service specs provided to us. There are 2x 48” fire pits and 7x 30” fire pits, all of which have a BBQ grill grate you can flip over the top to use to cook and grill.

The fire pits should arrive in about 3-weeks time from the vendor. I’d like to call out much thanks to BlondeJon for helping make the purchase on behalf of the chapter while my access to the club account is pending, and a huge thank you to Alan (Alboy97XJ) for organizing a commercial shipping address with a forklift to unload these heavy firepits (~90lbs each) which is saving us $$’s on freight charges along with a NV address to save on sales tax over shipping to CA, and also big thanks to Gordon (GordoSmasho) for being able to store the bulky fire pits until we’re able to install them in the late Spring/early Summer once highway 4 has re-opened. Last but not least, also thanks to Lou (#S194) for working with the NAXJA National Board in one of his last formal initiatives as Sierra Chapter President to organize the additional $500 Land Use Donation funds from the national board on top of the standard match to use towards this project.

Our plan is to install them in the May time-frame. I’ll keep you all updated as the project evolves if you’d like to donate your time to come up to Hermit Valley and help dig in the new fire pits and remove the makeshift ones we’ll be replacing.

Aaron with the Calaveras Ranger District mentioned he and his crew of 4-5 people would also be able to use their working time and tools to help with the labor for the project which will be of great help too.

Thank you all for your support of NAXJA and making us not only a club, but a great group of friends!

More updates to come! I've attached a diagram of the firepit-BBQ's we’ll be donating for this project.

FirepitBBQ.jpg
 
Thanks Mike this is totally awesome !
 
Thank you guys for working on this. That will be so great for Hermit valley. Just keep us all up updated on when we can get up there to install them
 
Will do! I'll make an announcement when the final weekend for the install is determined. Aaron will be back at the office so to say, April 27th for the summer season and I'll be able to chat with him more at that time, right now communicating via his personal email/phone in the off season. Thank you all as well for your support!
 
Mike, Looking at the cut Sheets for the fire pits, it looks like each one requires 4ea 8"x24" deep holes for the concrete footings.

Can you find out what tools the rangers will have at their disposal. I just have a feeling that digging through rock and roots might be fairly difficult by hand.

I do have a contact with a rental company and might be able to get 1 or more post hole diggers for a discounted rate. Please let me know if this is something that we would like to dig into further.
 
Mike, Looking at the cut Sheets for the fire pits, it looks like each one requires 4ea 8"x24" deep holes for the concrete footings.

Can you find out what tools the rangers will have at their disposal. I just have a feeling that digging through rock and roots might be fairly difficult by hand.

I do have a contact with a rental company and might be able to get 1 or more post hole diggers for a discounted rate. Please let me know if this is something that we would like to dig into further.



That’s a great question to ask now ahead of time vs the last minute, I have not yet asked what tools are at their disposal. If they don’t have any mechanical post hole diggers, that’d be great to investigate as to your point I’m sure plenty of roots and such to dig through!

As for the anchoring, the one thing they did share is they do not want them cemented in to introduce as little foreign material to the soil so we’d be digging the holes and compacting them back with dirt. I’ll keep you updated on this and I’ll send an email to Aaron with the question about tools right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
As for the anchoring, the one thing they did share is they do not want them cemented in to introduce as little foreign material to the soil so we’d be digging the holes and compacting them back with dirt. I’ll keep you updated on this and I’ll send an email to Aaron with the question about tools right now.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well that's a bummer. Is there another way we can anchor them to the ground? I just feel like 90lbs is easy enough for some idiot and his buddy to move or steal.

Maybe we can bend the ends of the rebar out and weld them to a piece of plate steel to act as an anchor on 2 feet per firepit?

Id also like to learn more about what the planned steps are for install are; anchorage and some sort of base like the cut sheets show?



As for the labeling of the firepits with a "Donated by" plaque, does anyone have access to a CNC laser or something so we could cut some fancy steel design and weld it to the side of the pits? Something fancy like the ruffstuff logos. https://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/LOGO.html

But say something along the lines of "Donated by NAXJA Sierra Chapter 2020" in the correct lettering and font and such.
 
So the fire rings will be coming to me and gordon in reno (saved money on shipping this way) Once we get an idea when the pass will be open a new post will happen with dates for anyone who can help. I have access to a cnc table so can handle the badges.
 
Hello All - as a quick update, today the Firepit/BBQ's have shipped and are en-route from Iowa to Reno!

PS - for those now wondering why from Iowa? Of our research of vendors, the Iowa vendor had the best price overall, shipping included
 
Heck yeh, I hope that this stupid covid crap gets lifted in time to actually be able to put them in.
 
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According to the drawing there should be some "course aggregate" in each pit. I don't know if it will work, but I have an ample amount of gravel, used for the drainage rock behind my retaining wall, that I can donate to the cause. Draw back is I have no truck or trailer to load it into so I would need help to get it there, if it would work for the fire pits.
 
Your donations at work. These are nine fire ring/bbq pits that were purchased with last years donations. Each put will have a placard welded to it saying Donated by Naxja Sierra Chapter 2019. There are 7 - 30” pits and 2 - 48” pits. They will be installed at the hermit valley campgrounds nearest to the dear valley trail we frequent at Sierrafest.

These pits will be installed alongside the Calaveras District Rangers before this season is in full swing. So we will be able to enjoy them at this years Sierrafest. We will be scheduling a trip up there to install the pits soon so keep an eye out for that event coming up.

Thank you all for your donations. They give us as a club an opportunity to give back to the communities we enjoy so much.

Gordon Fava
Naxja Sierra Chapter
President
024f154badc789a3a87b330cee08d68b.jpg
 
:thumbup::thumbup:

Each pit will have a placard welded to it saying Donated by Naxja Sierra Chapter 2019.

If not too late, can or should this be modified to include "Jeep club" or "offroad club"?
Otherwise 99% of the people using these pits will have no idea what Naxja is or will know that the pits were provided by the offroad community.
 
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