5/3-5/6: Worked on laying out
road to trail conversion on Firetower trail. Placed pin
flags all the way up the trail, marked with tape where we were
cutting the grade dips, and spray painted lines on the trail
(where the new tread would be).
5/11-5/15: Tom Dudley and a
friend of his came out and cut six grade dips at the top of the
trail for us, they came out really well. We continued the
double pin flag line and spray painting lines all the way up the
trail. Scarified all of the old trail that was not going to
be included in the new tread. Rented a JCB Robot front end
loader and cut the rest of the grade dips all the way down the
trail. Double checked everything, got port-a-johns and trash
cans set up, made sure everything was ready for the GE workday.
The GE group came out on Saturday and did an astounding job with
the road to trail conversion. This group blew us away.
They turned one and a quarter miles of fire road into one and
three quarter miles of smooth, flowy, fun trail in a matter of
three hours… amazing. We can't say enough about how great
a job those people did.
5/18-5/20: Ben and I cleared
corridor all the way to the top of the trail, working with three
hundred volunteers made this job go a lot faster! We put up
a few signs explaining what had just happened to the trail, asking
people to stay on the new trail so that it would stick. We
continued to touch up some of the masking work and place large
rocks at the apex of some turns, just to tighten the trail
up a little bit.
5/25-5/27: We finished the
actual tread all the way to the top of Firetower. We then
worked our way down the trail hogging out all the little stumps
and stobs that could trip people up.
6/1-6/5: Hiked the Firetower
trail after a weekend of heavy use and rain to see how it was
doing. The road to trail conversion is sticking very well.
No one seems to be short cutting any of the work that we have
done, the trail is draining much better as well. We then
hiked out on the north leg of the Sulphur Springs trail and worked
out our plan of attack. We are planning on doing two
reroutes, one roughly 2000', and one roughly 200'. There are
a couple of spots that we can't reroute because of boundary
issues, so we will do the best we can with some rolling grade
dips. Took chainsaws up the north leg of S.S. and cut out a
lot of deadfall. Prepared for HOG day, sharpened tools,
organized the tool trailer. Then we hiked up to Firetower
and flagged out the work zones on the two reroutes that needed to
be hand cut. HOG day was on Saturday and went great.
We had twenty six people show up, nine of which were an AmeriCorps
group that heard about the work day from Sunrift Adventures.
We got the two reroutes hand cut, and they came our great.
Tom Dudley, Ty, and the AmeriCorps group stayed late to mask the
work sites. Everyone had a great time, no one got hurt, it
was a really good day.
6/8-6/11: Worked on a couple
of spots on the Mountain Creek trail that were holding water.
Organized the tool trailer. Had a group of local riders come
out and work with us on the Firetower trail. Hiked the
entire trail system with Amanda Brooks Queen (trails coordinator
for S.C.) and Mike Foley (chief of resource management for S.C.).
Discussed our agenda for the rest of our tenure here.
6/21-6/24: Started meeting
with professional stone masons to figure out what we are going to
do with the Stone steps around the dam at Mountain Lake. Cut
six large nicks in the road to the amphitheatre to improve
drainage. Hiked S.S. trail in the pouring rain to figure out
where water was standing. Water is standing pretty bad on
the whole lower section of the trail. Walked with Al
Byrd and Bradley O'dell around the Lake Placid trail. Al was
in a manual wheel chair with skinny tires and 3" casters on
the front. Bradley was in an electric chair with larger
tires. Both of them made it around the trail up to the point
that we plan on building the S-turn viewing platform without much
trouble at all. This was the second time that anyone in a
wheelchair has navigated the Lake Placid trail, it is very
encouraging to us. We made the trail what we thought to be
wheelchair accessible, but we didn't really know until these guys
came out exactly how accessible it would be.
6/28-6/30: Had a couple more
meetings with stone masons about the stone steps at the dam of Mt.
Lake. Went to a defensive driving class (because we are park
employees, it helps with the park's insurance). We
then started cutting the reroute of the access trail to Mountain
Creek trail from Shelters 5&6. The old connection was
very steep and eroding away. This new connection will drain
much better, and be an easier access to the trails.
-Ben & Adam-
07/09/2004
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